Transfer Thursday — September 10

Transfer Thursday is a brand new regular section where you can learn about significant transfers, resignings, and line-up changes that have happened in the worlds of CS:GO, Dota 2, and other disciplines over the past week.

CS:GO

What's on the Clouds?

Cloud9 has started another restructuring of its CS:GO division. The American-South African squad formed after acquiring the ATK squad. Unfortunately, the acquisition ultimately did not justify itself, so the management put them on a transfer. The players will finish playing their last tournament — ESL Pro League Season 12 — tagged as Cloud9.

The roster leaving Cloud9:

• Johnny "JT" Theodosiou
• Aaron "Sonic" Groesbeek
• Ricky "floppy" Kemery
• Josh "oSee" Ohm
• Ian "motm" Hardy
• Tiaan "T.c" Coertzen (coach)

The new era of C9's CS:GO began with some huge signings: British caster Henry "HenryG" Greer joined as CEO, Alex "ALEX" McMeekin as in-game leader, and Alexander "kassad" Trifunovic will mentor the future roster. Greer announced his retirement from commenting last Friday. In an interview with Richard Lewis for Dexerto, he explained why he made this decision:

"My plans for this team are certainly ambitious,” Greer told Dexerto.” I wouldn't be involved in any sort of General Manager role unless I had absolute full control of the roster and direction we plan to head. C9 have entrusted me with their entire CS:GO dynasty and, honestly, I think that's one of the boldest moves any org has made in a long time. The Cloud9 Brand speaks for itself, it is one of the absolute cornerstones of the esports landscape. I'm aware there is a certain level of expectation going forward now. Failure simply isn't an option".

HenryG also added that kassad will also play an important role in finding the right roster for Cloud9.

And today, Greerpresumably teased that Shroud is going to re-join Cloud9. A great comeback?

Everything You Need to Know About the CS:GO Major

Hard Legion made easy decisions

Hard Legion announced the signing of the pro-scene veteran Sergey "starix" Ishchuk as the head coach of the CS:GO team. He will take the place of Alexander "MechanoGun" Bogatyrev, who was involved in a bug-using scandal to gain an advantage in the game. Starix started playing Counter-Strike back in 2004. During his career, he managed to play for Natus Vincere, Team Spirit, k1ck eSports Club, Runtime.gg, 1win, and many other teams.

Apeks roster news

The Norwegian club Apeks announced roster changes: due to the unsatisfactory results, Kristian "akez" Kornbakk lost his place in the team. Apeks won the local national Telia League three times in a row but failed to achieve similar results in the international arena: 13-16th at Vie.gg Legend Series and Nine to Five 4 Dawn and 9-10th at Eden Arena Malta Vibes Cup 10. Team coach Paul "Polly" Kammen will stand in for the next matches. 

Dota 2

Alliance formed

Alliance has just confirmed that they have signed Artyom "fng" Barshak on a free transfer. fng has been playing with Alliance for a couple of months, attending some online tournaments, and participating in OMEGA League. Before joining Alliance, Artyom played at Gambit Esports for two years. The player's contract with the organization expired on August 31 and the parties agreed not to renew it.

Limmp Interview: midlaner's life, relationship with Nikobaby and fng, bad habits, football career, and Dota cosmetics

Fear settles

Clinton "Fear" Loomis announced that he is taking a break from the professional Dota 2 scene until the official start of the DPC season. He explained his departure from business associates on his personal Twitter account:

His teammates Jackie "EternaLEnVy" Mao, Braxton "Brax" Paulson, and Jingjun "Sneyking" Wu subsequently founded the Team Zero stack. They were joined by Eric "Ryoya" Dong and Theeban "1437" Siva.

Maybe and fy leave PSG.LGD + insides

China is still in entropy

Reshuffles, reshuffles. Royal Never Give Up has announced its updated Dota 2 roster. Former Sparking Arrow Gaming member Zhong "圣 子 华 炼" Liushuai will replace Du "Monet" Peng, and ex-CDEC player  Sun "Srf" Runfa will play instead of Su "Flyby" Lei. The announcement was posted on the official RNG Weibo account.

Fy confirms Four Angry Men roster on stream

Xu "fy" Linsen unveiled to his Huya stream viewers the future roster of Four Angry Men (4AM). According to his word, he, Somnus丶M, and Yang have already signed contracts, and negotiations with Zhang "Eurus" Chengjun and Ru "RedPanda" Zhihao are in the final stages. The roster will be coached by ex-Vici Gaming mentor Bai "rOtK" Fan.

Fnatics on the move

Fnatic Dota 2 team also had some serious changes in the last week: Nico "Eyyou" Barcelon, who returned to the pro-scene after a year break, was signed to replace Anucha "Jabz" Jirawong, who left the roster by mutual agreement. It happened after an internal tactic and communication discussion, after which the players came to the conclusion that they needed a fifth position player.

Fnatic's full press release can be read on their Facebook page.

Unique news

Nikita "Palantimos" Grinkevich left the squad and will be replaced by 17-year-old player Artem "Lorenof" Melnik.

“Artem has reached 10,000 MMR, he is only 17 years old. Obviously, this is a player with great potential, and most importantly, with a great desire to become better. Fans of our organization have already seen his performances for the NOVA team. You can easily see that if [Artyom] make efforts with the right vector of work, he will become a top-level player!" - team manager Gleb "Feelmypain" Antokhin commented.

Palantimos has played for Unique since June 2020. Prior to that, he also played for the team from July to September in 2019.

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