Bad News Eagles lineup disband after parting ways with Guild

The Bad News Eagles we once knew are over. The Kosovan project that made headlines in recent Counter-Strike Majors disbanded on Friday, May 24.

The news comes the same day Guild Esports announced they would no longer sponsor the Bad News Eagles team due to a mutual agreement.

As soon as Guild made the announcement, the rifler Rigon "⁠rigoN⁠" Gashi said he is looking for a new team. Similar statements came from two of his former teammates — Flatron "⁠juanflatroo⁠" Halimi and Genc "⁠gxx-⁠" Kolgeci.

Although the Kosovans were last seen playing under the Guild Eagles tag, everyone in the Counter-Strike scene will remember them as Bad News Eagles. This is because the players achieved the most when they played without the financial support of an organization.

Bad News Eagles didn't win any tier-one trophies, but they put out memorable campaigns in the past few CS:GO Majors. The Kosovans played at the PGL Antwerp Major in May 2022, the IEM Rio Major in November 2022, and the BLAST Paris Major in May 2023. Their best campaign was in Brazil, when they eliminated FaZe Clan in the Legends Stage.

As being underdogs, they were easy to identify with and garnered fans from all around the world for keep qualifying for Majors despite having no organizational support. Oddly enough, the only Major they ever missed since PGL Antwerp Major was the PGL Copenhagen CS2 Major in March 2024, when they were a part of Guild Esports and thus had more resources to work with.

As one could expect, the decision to disband wasn't exactly easy for the former Bad News Eagles players. They were the only known representatives of Kosovo inside Counter-Strike's ecosystem and spent years playing together.

Rigon, for example, described his time on the team as the best of his life and said his teammates were friends who became his family.

Juanflatroo, on the other hand, said he'll remember the good and the tough times for the rest of his life and that each of his former teammates will always have a special place in his heart.

Although we'll keep watching these players in other teams, the disbandment means that we have lost another regional team most likely to the detriment of the ever-growing popularity of international projects as the odds of some of them mounting another Kosovan team are slim at best.

Bad News Eagles lineup was:

That's all for now. Stay tuned to esports.gg for more CS2 news.