Wake up babe, a new Colossus just dropped.

Old kassad, after a few years of punditry and hot takes, has waded back into the competitive scene as the coach and de facto GM of Singapore’s BLEED Esports.

But, we all know how hard it is to build a lineup from the ground up.

Step one: Find your IGL and your AWPer.

For IGL, kassad has gone with hampus, who wanted to build a Swedish super (read: mid) team but couldn’t get the funding. Still, it’s a solid first piece for the new lineup.

For AWPer, you can already see why entering CS can be so difficult. BLEED have picked up CeRq, who had a miserable time after COVID at EG but has been grinding CS2 to good effect.

There’s no doubt it’s a gamble, but we’ve seen kassad revive players’ careers before; just look where jkaem was pre-Renegades.

The rifling core is also taking advantage of benched players. faveN (who was always good for BIG, when he wasn’t missing games due to illness) and lauNX (albeit on loan) join to be the side’s two lurkers, and both have untapped potential.

BLEED did go for dupreeh (kassad didn’t like the agent), maxster (couldn’t play at RMRs since he was NIP’s 6th), and jks (who “respectfully refused”).

And, props to kassad for publicly acknowledging this. Transparency with transfers is a rare gift in CS, and we should give credit to those who deploy it rather than using it as a stick to beat them with (see HenryG at Cloud9).

Last but not least, BLEED have extracted CYPHER out of TSM, a British entry-fragger extraordinaire of Major fame who hasn’t really had a chance to repeat his feat since his move to TSM.

It’s a solid, international, generic, tier-two roster. But unless you have the backing of a state, that’s probably the best way to start out.

Their competition will be OG, TSM, BNE, BIG, GamerLegion, and NIP — not the heavy hitters.

The aim will be Major stickers, and a solid enough ranking to get a few invites. Achieve that, and kassad will already have put his money where his mouth is.

BLEED’s lineup:

🇸🇪 hampus
🇬🇧 CYPHER
🇩🇪 faveN
🇷🇴 lauNX
🇧🇬 CeRq

Everything else

🤑 Money, Money, Money

STYKO gives us a no-nonsense, fully transparent rundown of how much money he made this- eh last year (we’re still a bit hungover from NYE) and where it came from.

Bubzkji also chimed in with a little insight on another big income factor for pros: stickers. Turns out it is a very big factor.

Which makes it even more interesting to know who has and hasn’t made it to the Major Closed Qualifiers. What a segue, we know.

🤨 Don’t be suspicious

Looks like the first ban wave of 2024 is now officially a thing, with Valve now tracking bullet behaviour and doing wizard stuff with the results. We know what we’re talking about.

There are two weird things about s1mple coming on Thorin’s podcast. 1: He called the guy a moron and a piece of shit, and 2: This feels like an end-of-career thing he’d do. Please don’t leave s1mple.

🫡 Just putting it out there

Jason Lake is looking to take over again at Complexity now that their current owners are a little more busy with FaZe.

Not only that, but he’s also committed to taking NA to the next echelon of CS. Good luckwith that.

To finish off this first edition of the year, we’d like to put our very own beefkeeper out there as the most amazingest video editor we know. Seriously, that guy will make your lucky deagle headshot look like a Christopher Nolan movie.