Transfer Thursday — September 3

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

Chaos is organized

Chaos Esports Club announced that CS:GO pro-scene veteran Joshua "steel" Nissan has decided to end his professional career. However, the player will not leave the club but will become a streamer and content creator, focusing on VALORANT.

The Canadian's career has had many ups and downs: in 2014, he was a member of the infamous iBUYPOWER roster, but unlike teammates AZK, DaZeD and swag, he was able to fully revive his career. Steel leaves CS:GO in style: he helped Chaos earn a 3-4th place at ESL One Cologne 2020 North America and brought the team to the top-20 of the HLTV world ranking.

New Chapter: Pros Who Chose VALORANT

Chaos Esports Club did not delay finding a player and announced the transfer of ex-NRG, United, and Ze Pug Godz player Edgar "MarKE" Maldonado. The Mexican will be a direct replacement for steel in the roster, while Anthony "vanity" Malaspina will take over the role of the in-game leader.

The updated Chaos EC roster made its debut at ESL Pro League Season 12 North America with a 1:2 loss in a match against Team Liquid.

Pug Godz will patrol

Ze Pug Godz, Edgar "MarKE" Maldonado's former club, has revived the famous American Swole Patrol tag and will now perform with that name. Two of the five roster members — Austin "Cooper-" Abadir and Jordan "Zellsis" Montemurro — used to play for SP in the past. At the moment, the stack is in a decent 33rd place in the HLTV world ranking, and players hope that some major organizations will pay attention to them. The team will try their hands in ESEA MDL North America and IEM New York 2020 North America.

Completing the Singularity

The Danish organization Team Singularity has signed the two missing players for the main CS:GO team. Anton "notaN" Pedersen and Oliver "IceBerg" Berg joined the squad. They will replace Daniel "mertz" Mertz, who left for the new Copenhagen Flames project, and Tobias "TOBIZ" Theo, who was benched.

Astralis comeback

Astralis announced the return of Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander to the main CS:GO roster. At ESL Pro League 12 he will replace Patrick "es3tag" Hansen.

Lukas 'gla1ve' Rossander, Astralis: "I'm really excited to get back on the server. It's hard to say where my level will be against a top team like Complexity right now, but I've had some really good practice sessions with the team lately. Intergrating the two new players have gone well, and I'm looking forward to playing with my old teammates, as well as with 'Bubzkji' and 'es3tag', they've both performed really well already."

Astralis roster: ⁠dupreeh⁠, ⁠device⁠, ⁠Magisk⁠, Bubzkji⁠, gla1ve⁠, ⁠zonic⁠.

Dota 2

Early reshuffle morning in China

The Chinese Dota 2 pro-scene drama continues: two days ago, Yang and rOtk departed from Vici Gaming. It was also officially confirmed yesterday that Song "Sccc" Chun is parting ways with Team Aster and becoming a free agent. Besides him, Pan "Fade" Yi and Kee Chyuan "CHYuan" Ng had previously left the Chinese club. Rumors are wooing Sccc at PSG.LGD, but there is no official information at the moment.

Sources say that in the nearest future 4AM will announce their brand new Dota 2 roster, which may include Yang and rOtk. Imba-team?

Belarusian gambit

Gambit Esports has announced that the captain of their Dota 2 team Artem "fng" Barshak is leaving the team as a free agent: his contract expired on August 31, and the parties agreed not to renew it.

Fng has been with Gambit Esports since 2018 and has spent the last few months in Alliance as a stand-in. At the moment, it is not known whether he will become a full-fledged player, or will look for another team.

A sad Reality

Ilya Vlasov, Reality Rift CEO, announced that the club is closing the Dota 2 roster. The announcement was posted on his personal Twitter account.

The statement highlighted the main issues Reality Rift faced: movement restrictions imposed by the coronavirus pandemic hinder proper team leadership and training. Also, some players have simply not been at home for more than six months. This greatly affects morale. The lack of visible efforts in regulating the pro-scene from Valve and the club's financial problems were also obstacles to further existence.

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