The CS.MONEY blog is here to cover the even highlights of the past week. New flusha lineup, reshuffles in NAVI, and the great unbanning of players.
flusha built a lineup from free agents
Three-time Major champion Robin “flusha” Rönnquist announced a new team last week. The GORILLAZ lineup includes Jere “sergej” Salo, Rokas “EspiranTo” Milasauskas, Buğra “Calyx” Arkın, and Miikka “suNny” Kemppi.
GORILLAZ players have already played their first matches. The team participated in the open qualificer for the third season of Flashpoint. As part of the qualifying stage, the European mix beat Nexus and a few other teams.
The freshly created team didn’t make it to the tournament though. In the quarterfinals, GORILLAZ players lost to Copenhagen Flames.
Reshuffle in Evil Geniuses
Despite replacing Ethan “Ethan” Arnold with Owen “oBo” Schlatter a week ago, Evil Geniuses are continuing to make replacements. Last week, the team was joined by Michał “MICHU” Müller. Previously, MICHU has played for Virtus.rho and Envy.
He took the place of Tarik “tarik” Celik on the roster. The ELEAGUE Boston 2018 champion and MVP will remain with the organization as a content maker. As of today, the main roster of Evil Geniuses hasn’t played a single match yet. The first tournament for the team’s renewd roster is FunSpark ULTI 2021.
Highlight of the week
The highlight of the week was definitely Adam “NEOFRAG” Zouhar’s moment against Lyngby Vikings. It was an ESEA Premier match, with the winner advancing further; at 12-3, the Danish squad charged at Adam, and he did the unbelievable. He handled a 1-v.-5 situation and, in a matter of seconds, scored 13 points for the team. The winning pistol round enabled the team to quickly finish the game and earn a slot at ESEA Premier Season 37.
Vitality: one RpK out, one Kyojin in
Team Vitality can’t seem to find its game this year. The squad has already rolled back to the bottom of the top 10 according to HLTV. Besides kicking Nabil “Nivera” Benrlitom, the team has also take its leave of Cedric “RpK” Goipue.
The 32-year-old player has been replaced by Jason “Kyojin” Nguyen. Previously, he was part of the Heretics lineup. Notably, the Frenchman doesn’t have any significant achievements under his belt. The replacement has already been criticized by the community, but Vitality management have yet to comment on the situation. We’ll be able to see the updated Vitality roster at DreamHack Masters Spring 2021.
The unbanning of players
Last week’s key news was an announcement from Valve. Almost eight years after the game’s release, the company decided to revise the VAC ban regulations. Players who were banned more than five years ago can now play in the company’s tournaments again.
Still, there are certain restrictions. To get a second chance, a player must have received their VAC before they played at Valve tournaments or their qualifiers.
This means that the most famous banned player, Hovik “KQLY” Tovmasyan, won’t be able to participate in the Major. At the same time, Valve’s decision enables Elias “Jamppi” Olkkonen and Vinicius “vsm” Moreira to move further. Both players have been trying to get unbanned for a long time. Both received their bans a long time ago — they both got their VAC at the age of 13.
Interestingly, the decision only applies to VAC. Players banned for match-fixing are still not allowed to participate in tournaments sponsored by Valve.
If you want to stay in the know, stay tuned for more articles from the CS.MONEY blog. It’s exciting here!
