ptkovsky
One of the most successful and respected teams on the entire CS: GO scene — Astralis, announced yesterday that the organization from Europe swapped two of their players and also their head coach.
The famed multigaming esports organization, originating from Denmark, made a corresponding set of announcements in their official Twitter account. The yesterday’s moves definitely mark the end of an era for one of the strongest teams in the history of Counter-Strike.
First of all, the best Danish CS: GO team decided to bench their coach Danny “zonic” Sorensen and instead they introduced Alexander “ave” Holdt as the roster’s new head coach.
Announcing @avecsgo as new Head Coach. pic.twitter.com/yIcGHCdkQK
— Astralis Counter-Strike (@AstralisCS) November 4, 2021
New coach ave
The legendary CS 1.6 player, ave has been active on the FPS’ scene since 2006. He won about $100,000 during his professional esports career. Holdt is famous for competing in well-known CS teams such as Spirit of Amiga, Team NoA, and also mTw.
While being an in-game leader and also acting as a proficient tactical mastermind for the fearsome mTw squad throughout the period of 2007-2011, ave’s unique vision of the game’s meta led his team to winning multiple events like the WCG series championship which was then considered more than a major tournament — World Cyber Games 2008.
The LAN event was held in Cologne, Germany in the beginning of November 2008. It was hosting 48 best CS 1.6 teams from around the globe.
On their way to the WCG championship in the playoffs of the German event, the Danish team beat the likes of the polish CS roster of Meet Your Makers with Filip “NEO” Kubski, and then also were stronger than Ola “elemeNt” Moum’s cbteam from Norway.
The mTw team then in the finals overcame Robert “RobbaN” Dahlstrom’s SK Gaming clan, originating from Germany, with the 2:1 score to win the first place at the WCG 2008 event and also grab a solid $50,000 prize.
2008 was the year when the Danish squad definitely found a lot of success and is sometimes considered by many analysts as the “year of mTw”. And here’s why.
ave’s organization was victorious at many events, such as the World e-Sports Masters 2008 with their 2:1 win in the finals over mousesports in Hangzhou, China, the IEM series Intel Extreme Masters III European Championship finals in Hannover with 1:0 victory over Team ALTERNATE, and also 2:0 triumph versus the Fnatic team at Moscow’s KODE5 2008 LAN.
Interestingly enough, ave’s mTw squad was featuring the likes of his fellow teammate and now already former Astralis head coach zonic, who led the notorious Danish CS: GO team and is responsible for their record four Major titles.
zonic was easily one of the best and most recognized players in the world during the CS 1.6 era. He is arguably even more famous than ave. The famed 35-year-old Dane was active on the professional scene since 2003, and together with ave he competed for mTw from 2007 up until the disband in 2011, which by the way then also marked the end of an era.
ave retired in August while Sorensen joined the likes of the mousesports organization in December 2011, but only to be able to play Counter-Strike professionally for a few more months.
Before joining the likes of the Astralis and filling zonic’s shoes, ave transitioned to professional CS: GO around 2015 and notably served as an analyst for both North and also their Academy team during the period of 2017-2019.
Holdt was one of the specialists who managed to receive a ban for 6 months from the ESIC organization and was then also not allowed to compete in major tournaments by Valve themselves, due to him exploiting the infamous coaching bug like many other coaches on the competitive CS: GO scene.
The 33-year-old Danish coach’s biggest achievement with the North team, captained by Mathias “MSL” Lauridsen, was placing first at the DreamHack Masters Stockholm event in September 2018. North then managed to beat their rivals — Astralis 2:1 in the finals and grab $100,000.
As a coach for the team from Denmark, ave also won $65,000 at the Esports Championship Series Season 6 — Finals, when his North squad lost to mibr 1:2 and placed third-fourth place at the ECS event, which was held in the United States in November 2018.
The North team with ave in charge were in pretty good shape in the 2018 season. The Danish team managed to continuously achieve first place finishes and $50,000 prizes at both DreamHack Open series May 2018 event in Tours, when they beat HellRaisers 2:0 in the finals, and also the 2:0 win against Henrique “HEN1” Teles’ Luminosity Gaming team in the finals the DreamHack Open Valencia 2018 event.
dupreeh, Magisk, zonic
Speaking more about the previous members of the Astralis team, this is definitely the end of an era for the previous iteration of the Astralis roster, which in addition to their head coach zonic also featured two of the best CS: GO players in the world — Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussen and Emil “Magisk” Reif.
dupreeh was one of the members of the Danish CS: GO elite who joined the likes of the Astralis organization in the beginning of 2016. Rasmussen started playing CS: GO in 2012 and won approximately $2,000,000 of total prize pool money during his professional esports career.
A pretty much universal player and a solid overall performer, the 28-year-old Dane played all of the roles on his former team, including entry fragger, lurker, and even served as Astralis’ AWPer.
The great Danish CS: GO legacy started happening in 2012, when the roster of the Copenhagen Wolves’ multigaming esports organization was formed in September.
It featured the likes of today’s Astralis in-game leader Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander and also the notorious former Heroic coach Nicolai “HUNDEN” Petersen. This initial iteration of the roster did not achieve much and so it quickly disbanded after a few months of active play.
The start of the 2013 season on the Danish competitive CS: GO scene marked the formation of the entirely new team, where dupreeh was joined by Andreas “Xyp9x” Hojsleth and Nicolai “device” Reedtz.
The trio of the Danish players sticked together and moved on through the years while also changing different organizations, starting from uber G33KZ in the end of 2013, then transitioning to Team Dignitas in 2014, playing for Team SoloMid in 2015, and later forming the core of the Astralis squad in 2016.
The year before Magisk’s arrival in the beginning of 2018, the Astralis team already managed to win their first Major. The organization entered the Valve-sponsored ELEAGUE Major: Atlanta 2017 tournament in January due to their victory at the previous ESL One: Cologne 2016 event.
For this ELEAGUE Major tournament, the Danish team’s roster was reshaped and one in-game leaders from Denmark was replaced by another person. The team’s former captain — the experienced Finn “karrigan” Andersen, switched his places with the current Astralis leader gla1ve.
The Danish CS: GO team’s pretty rough debut in the North American $1,000,000 major event’s group stage ended with the sixth place and a shaky 3-2 score, with the two losses against GODSENT and SK Gaming with the 6:16 and 17:19 respective scores, and a final win against Team Liquid in the end to keep them up and running in the Atlanta tournament.
In the playoffs, the team found their second wind and was able to score a 2:1 victory over the Ukrainian squad Natus Vincere in the quarterfinals. Astralis then were also better than the Fnatic organization from Sweden with the two map wins and the first one finishing 19:16 during the overtime.
In the finals of the ELEAGUE Major: Atlanta 2017 tournament, the Astralis team clashed with the remains of the Golden Five squad in the form of the legendary Polish roster of Vitrus.pro.
The full Bo3 series’ matches were extremely close as Astralis, despite losing the first Nuke map, did not give up and were able to clinch the victory in the championship with the two 16:14 finishes on the following Overpass and Train maps. The Danish team got $500,000 for their win in the ELEAGE event and started writing another chapter in the CS history book.
Speaking of the second player Magisk and his addition to Astralis, he is a younger player and has been active on the CS: GO scene since 2015. The Magiskb0Y played for teams such as mTw, SK Gaming, Team Dignitas, North, and OpTic Gaming before joining the Astralis organization in February 2018.
With Magisk on board, the Astralis roster started farming tournaments one by one and then won $500,000 at the major CS: GO event in 2018 — the FACEIT Major: London 2018.
Interestingly enough, the duo of dupreeh and zonic won ELEAGUE Major: Atlanta 2017. But after Astralis added Magisk, they won three Majors in a row.
The Danes were the Returning Challengers at the FACEIT Major. They won the first group stage 3-1 only losing to Ninjas in Pyjamas on Mirage.
The second group stage or New Legends stage also featured only one loss of Astralis to Team Liquid with the equally positive tournament’s record round difference of plus 26. FaZe Clan and Liquid were then killed in the playoffs and the Danish team defeated Na’Vi 2:0 in the finals.
After the FACEIT event, the dupreeh, Magisk, and zonic roster’s domination and one of their biggest and their most recent set of achievements continued with the team winning the additional $1,000,0000 prize at the two subsequent CS: GO Majors in the 2019 competitive season.
The Astralis squad won the first major tournament of the 2019 season — the Intel Extreme Masters XIII — Katowice Major 2019. The epic LAN championship held at the Spodek Arena in Poland was considered arguably one of the last biggest CS: GO events organized before the online COVID-19 era started.
dupreeh’s squad finished the New Legends stage with the confident 3-0 result with wins over Complexity Gaming, also Cloud9, and Renegades, and then moved on to the New Champions phase where they 2:0 outplayed teams Ninjas in Pyjamas, mibr, and ENCE in the finals.
Six months after Katowice, the second big event was held in Germany — the StarLadder Berlin Major 2019. As usual, thanks to their first place finish in Katowice, Reif’s team maintained their Legends status and started the Berlin event straight from the New Legends phase. The Danish squad only lost to NRG Esports, but were able to gather three wins over DreamEaters, G2 Esports, and CR4ZY.
In the playoffs, Astralis were pretty much looking as cold blooded as possible, and they dominated the opposition with the 2:0 record to end the reign of the previous 7 big event winners and Intel Grand Slam champions, the undefeated TL team in the epic Astralis vs Team Liquid matchup. The Danes then also replied to their previous offenders NRG Esports.
Rasmussen’s squad surprisingly was able to easily overcome the Dauren “AdreN” Qystaubaev’s dangerous Kazakh squad AVANGAR with the 16:6 score on Inferno and 16:5 on Dust2 in the Bo3 final series which was played out at the Mercedes-Benz Arena venue.
k0nfig and blameF
With Benjamin “blameF” Bremer and Kristian “k0nfig” Wienecke now also joining Astralis and leaving Complexity Gaming, blameF will no longer be the captain of the team like he was during his time in COL. The 24-year-old player previously admitted that his in-game leadership was full of issues and it also hurt his personal skill progression.
— Astralis Counter-Strike (@AstralisCS) November 4, 2021
Starting from now, Bremer can obviously relax and focus a bit more on his own game. It turns out that he will be playing under the leadership of one of the absolute best IGLs in the world — gla1ve.
But being a strong tactician himself, blameF’s arsenal of strategies can help the Astralis squad make interesting new mid round calls during the game, and also just sit with ave and the boys and write a lot of new pages in their already enormous strat book.
We talked a lot previously about the recent situation with k0nfig. The talented Dane managed to break his wrist when he fell down on the floor in the airport and was then in need of surgery.
Due to his temporary inactivity, the already shaky COL team was having severe problems with their roster. When k0nfig left his former team last month, the rumors started immediately spreading in the CS community that he already signed a contract with Astralis.
The complexity in the situation with Complexity Gaming’s organization started to become more and more complex. Without k0nfig and blameF, the COL’s roster now only features their newest addition — Marcelo “coldzera” David. Luis “peacemaker” Tadeu is acting as team’s coach and he is the only other person remaining on COL’s active lineup besides the legendary stand-in player.
Briefly thinking about Complexity’s future, we can remember that both Brazilian professionals joined the North American esports organization in Summer 2021. The next possible moves of the COL organization in CS: GO remain unknown.
Though, it is known that the owners of the team want to get rid of Justin “jks” Savage and Patrick “es3tag” Hansen. Some of the analysts previously already predicted the disbanding of the team. What if Complexity are set to build a new team around coldzera, introduce either the Portuguese roster or even build an entirely new international team speaking in English?
Back to the nearest perspective of the Astralis roster, the totally rebooted Danish team will definitely try their best to perform well at their debut games during one of the recent events — the BLAST Premier: Fall Finals 2021 in the end of November.
The Danish team earned their slot in the Fall Finals when they finished 4th-6th place at the previous BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2021 event in September.
In total, the most recent Astralis CS: GO lineup consists of the following members:
- Alexander “ave” Holdt (Coach)
- Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander (Captain)
- Andreas “Xyp9x” Hojsleth
- Philip “Lucky” Ewald
- Kristian “k0nfig” Wienecke
- Benjamin “blameF” Bremer
- Lucas “Bubzkji” Anderse