Typically teams don’t make roster moves after winning one of the biggest events of the year, but it looks like Spirit are planning to do just that. According to HLTV, they’ll be bringing in tN1R from HEROIC after EWC concludes.

Sadly, though, that does mean that zont1x will be losing his spot on the team. So let’s pay our respects to one of Counter-Strike’s greatest body-shotting pscyhopaths.

And the milions of Chinese girls crying over his departure…

… Okay, that’s enough of that.

Coming with an alleged $1.5M price tag, the Belarusian looks set to be an expensive signing for Spirit should the move happen, and with a hefty cost like that, expectations will be high. But honestly? We think he’ll be worth every penny.

You might think we’re mental for saying this, but donk - and sh1ro, we guess - really just aren’t enough for Spirit to win consistently. They’ll still win the odd event, of course, donk is too good for them to not, but they need more firepower if they want to consistently see themselves lifting trophies.

And given the fact that they managed to dodge Vitality in Cologne, this move shows that they’re very aware of that fact.

It’s also one of the best moves they could make, too. With zweih and tN1R, they’ve (sort of) perfectly replaced zont1x and magixx, all whilst bringing in two exceptional fraggers that should allow them to become more consistent against the likes of Falcons, MOUZ, and Vitality.

And G2, who we think they were lucky beat in BLAST Bounty and who we’re going to keep saying won the player break until they prove us right.

It might be a slightly oddly timed move, well no, it’s a very oddly timed move. We can’t figure out why it’s happening now and not prior to Cologne, but it’s also a very good one.

zont1x might be a top player, but he’s not tN1R, who has been one of the most impressive players in the world this year after not even originally being intended to be on the HEROIC team he’s impressed for.

So, although it might take a little time for tN1R and Spirit, we think they’ll be just fine.

And even though we might be sad to see zont1x inevitably fade from tier one for a little while, we have to admit, we’re really excited to see this move come to fruition.