Falcons benches 3 players after not qualifying for Perfect World Shanghai Major

Leonardo Biazzi

Leonardo Biazzi

Falcons will be the most active organization in the CS2 transfer market for 2025.

Falcons benched Peter "dupreeh" Rasmussen, Marco "Snappi" Pfeiffer, and Pavle "⁠Maden⁠" Bošković on Nov. 21, mere two days after the team bombed out of the Perfect World Shanghai Major Europe RMR.

In addition to that, Falcons won't extend Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyljev's loan for 2025. This leaves only Emil "Magisk" Reif left in the active lineup as the Spanish AWPer Alvaro "SunPayus" Garcia is still benched too.

"Missing the Shanghai Major has been an incredibly disappointing and heartbreaking setback for us," Falcons said in the announcement. "We are now dedicating the time and effort needed to rebuild our roster for 2025."

Analysts and fans had been expecting this massive overhaul as Falcons failed to accomplish anything throughout 2024. The team's head coach Danny "zonic" Sørensen had already announced that changes were coming even before the Europe RMR failure, so it's not like the players were caught off-guard.

Snappi and maden were part of Falcons since December 2023 as they left ENCE alongside SunPayus to join the Saudi-backed organization. Dupreeh, on the other hand, had been playing for Falcons since April. He was brought to replace Mohammad "BOROS" Malhas after Falcons missed the PGL Copenhagen Major.

What's next for Falcons?

Could Falcons snag both NiKo and m0NESY from G2? (Photo by Michal Konkol via BLAST)
Could Falcons snag both NiKo and m0NESY from G2? (Photo by Michal Konkol via BLAST)

Falcons has an array of possibilities now that they benched everybody but Magisk. The organization has reportedly signed G2's star rifler Nikola "NiKo" Kovač for 2025, and recent rumors say that Falcons is targeting G2's AWPer Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov and MOUZ's anchor Jimi "Jimpphat" Salo.

It's unclear, though, if Falcons is also after a new in-game leader. Magisk earned a reputation as a formidable mid-round caller, so the organization could try making him a full-time IGL.

Even though it will be a lot of work rebuilding the roster, Falcons will have more than a month to plan their roster for 2025. Due to missing the Major, they have no events left to play in 2024.

It's likely that we won't see any announcements until the Shanghai Major concludes in December, however. The NiKo move seems like a done deal as G2 already confirmed he's leaving the team at the end of the year.

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