Astralis started the new season with disappointing results. Initially, they finished 5th – 6th at BLAST Premier: Spring Groups, making everyone believe that they would have a decent run this year. But immediately after, they started to fail badly at important events.
In February, they finished 21st – 24th at IEM Katowice and were eliminated after just two matches. The teams that defeated them were Heroic and ENCE.
Then, in the qualifiers for PGL Major Copenhagen, they finished 9th – 11th and missed the boat with a record of 2 W – 3 L. They had one more chance to qualify by winning the Decider Brackets. But they lost their first match against the eventual winner, 9Pandas. Clearly, something had to be done.
The New Coach
Mathias “R0nic” Pinholt, the interim coach, was supposed to coach the team for a few more months. However, after IEM Katowice and the RMRs for the Copenhagen Major, the management of the team decided to speed up the process.
The new coach of the team is Casper “ruggah” Due, who is 35 years old and spent four years coaching OG. Before that, he was the coach of Team Dignitas, North, and OpTic Gaming. The most important trophy he won in his career was EPICENTER 2016.
It remains to be seen what he can do to help Astralis start winning trophies again. Or, at the very least, stop missing big events. Normally, his experience should be enough to turn a roster as formidable as this one into a relatively successful team. Even a top 15 would probably be sufficient at this point.
Saying Goodbye to blameF
Another important change that happened was the benching of Benjamin “blameF” Bremer, who was the team’s IGL. This does not seem to be a good decision because blameF’s performance last year clearly proved that he is a very capable player.
He might not be suited for the IGL role, but could have easily remained a member of the roster.
Of course, in such a case, someone would have had to assume the IGL role, and it’s likely that nobody wanted or had the ability to play it. Nicolai “dev1ce” Reedtz is certainly experienced enough to play that role, but does he want it?
Another problem is that he’s so good at what he does that making him the team’s IGL might have been a waste of his talent.
The question now is: who will be the team’s 5th player?
Update
Alexander “br0” Bro was signed as the 5th player and dev1ce became the team’s new IGL.
Header image credit: BLAST
