Yesterday was a sad day for Astralis fans and Danish Counter-Strike in general. The new roster, which has Casper “cadiaN” Moller as IGL, continues to struggle.
This does not mean, of course, that it can’t work. After all, when you compete at the highest level, against the best teams in the world, two months of training isn’t nearly enough if you have a new IGL whose game philosophy is different from the one previously used.
Still, the fans were hopeful that Astralis would qualify for the Shanghai Major. The odds, at least on paper, were in their favor. But after losing to 9Pandas and Sashi Esport, it was clear that something went wrong.
At the same time, competitors like 3DMAX and Passion UA played unbelievably well despite having a modest position in the global rankings. Both of them ended up qualifying. In fact, 3DMAX won all of their matches!
BIG was another team that surprised us, ending the RMR with a perfect score. It seems that the new player, Rigon “rigoN” Gashi, whom they signed in July this year, is exactly what the lineup needed.
The Qualified Teams
These are the seven teams that qualified for the Shanghai Major:
- BIG
- 3DMAX
- G2 Esports
- HEROIC
- Virtus.pro
- Passion UA
- Team Spirit
Ninjas in Pyjamas finished with a 3 W – 2 L result but were eliminated by Team Spirit in the tiebreaker.
Not that long ago, a CS2 Major without Astralis and NiP was unthinkable. But in esports, no king lives forever and in some cases, great teams can fall into obscurity in a short period of time.
Things have changed a lot since IEM Katowice 2024, where Team Spirit won with one of the most dominant performances we’ve seen in the history of Counter-Strike. In this RMR, they barely made it through. We’ll see what they can do at the Major, which is scheduled to start on November 30.
