Every offseason, hundreds of transfers occur in the world of eSports. Sometimes, organizations do reshuffles right in-between consecutive competitions for one reason or another. Today, the CS.MONEY Blog is going to elaborate on unconventional transfers in CS:GO teams.
The fateful fnatic update & the decline of Andreas “znajder” Lindberg
In the summer of 2014, fnatic replaced Jonatan “Devilwalk” Lundberg and Andreas “znajder” Lindberg with Olof “olofmeister” Kajbjer and Freddy “KRIMZ” Johansson. The renewed team won 2 Majors: ESL One Katowice 2015 and ESL One Cologne 2015. Fnatic’s coach was then devilwalk, with znajder dropping out of the squad.
Andreas’ career went downhill afterwards. At the same time when he got kicked out of fnatic, Lindberg was dumped by his girlfriend, his first love, whom he’d dated for almost 3 years. Znajder started taking antidepressants and light drugs. His bad habits were the reason why he was kicked out of Dignitas in 2015 and out of GODSENT in 2017. Presently, Andreas can only be seen in small Sweden-based clubs. That’s how one ‘exit transfer’ became one of the factors that destroyed the morale of the promising shooter.
How Brazilians betrayed Luminosity by transferring to SK
In May 2016, SK pulled off one of the most ingenious deals in the history of eSports. Luminosity Gaming players — the legendary Brazilians coldzera, FalleN, fnx, fer, and TACO — signed contracts with the German organization while still having valid agreements with LG.
The day before the start of MGL Columbus 2016 Major, in which they were victorious, the guys signed contracts with SK that would enter into force on July 1, 2016, the day before their contracts with Luminosity Gaming were expiring. By transferring to SK, the players violated both written and verbal agreements with LG on contract extensions until the end of the year, which, as it turned out, had no legal weight. The Brazilians made the SK tag famous by winning multiple LAN tournaments, including the 2016 ESL One Cologne Major, while Luminosity Gaming, having tried to replace the legendary five with their compatriots, were left out in the cold. None of the future rosters reached the heights FalleN & co had conquered.
Markus “Kjaerbye” Kjærbye, who shot himself in the foot
The start of 2018 was absolutely shocking to some Astralis fans: the youngest star of the roster moved to North, the Danes’ direct rival. Unexpectedly, in free agent status.
In 2017, Astralis were one of the world’s best teams, with Markus “Kjaerbye” Kjærbye becoming the youngest winner and MVP in a Major. Towards the end of the year, the team performed with stand-ins due to Nicolai “dev1ce” Reedtz’ health problems, and approached the first Major of 2018 in a shape that left much to be desired. After his return, device handed the role of AWPer to Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussen — shortly before the start of the competition. The team failed to make the playoffs, and it was probably then that Kjærbye decided to “step out of device’s shadow,” joining the squad’s direct competitors from North, where he was granted the role of ‘first fiddle’ and a huge salary. After the Major ended, the players were free agents for a while and were to receive new agreements from Astralis in a couple of days. It was during this short contractless period that Markus got signed by North.
History has set the record straight. The one who traded his friends and team for fame and money eventually achieved very little with North, winning only a few small LANs. Astralis, on the other hand, replaced Markus with Emil “Magisk” Reif’s and won 3 Majors in a row, building the longest era in CS:GO history. Kjaerbye has now officially ended his career at the age of 23.
Smooya’s transfer history
Owen “smooya” Butterfield has changed 5 teams over 3 years, never staying over 9 months in one club. And every time, there were significant tensions between him and his former teammates.
From April 2018 to January 2019, Owen played quite decently for BIG, but after that, he became something of an extra in international squads (Chaos, Renegades, BIG again) rather than a full-fledged player. After leaving Chaos in May 2020, the Briton stayed without a contract for six months until Movistar Riders invited him. Butterfield promised to become a better teammate, but didn’t sign the agreement due to a demand for a pay raise. In October 2021, smooya received another chance: he got signed by the ambitious fnatic. Recently, though, in March 2022, he left yet another team after failing to find common ground with his teammates. Interestingly, each of these incidents was accompanied by rumors about toxicity. Nevertheless, if we judge by the story around fnatic, we can only say that Butterfield has a hard time getting along with people, nothing more.
So those were some curious transfer stories. Do you want more? Then stay tuned to CS.MONEY and check out our interviews with oSee and Richard “shox” Papillon.
