Some teams overhauled their rosters during the off-season.
Many CS2 teams will show up with new faces at the BLAST Premier Fall Groups, which will run from July 29 to Aug. 4
BLAST Premier Fall Groups is one of the first tier-one CS2 tournaments of the second semester 2024, and on top of that, there are six BLAST Premier Fall Finals spots up for grabs. This makes this tournament an excellent opportunity for the players who switched teams in the off-season.
If you've kept yourself out of the CS2 news during the past month, here are the teams with the biggest changes at the BLAST Premier Fall Groups.
G2 Esports
G2 are undoubtedly a new team after the organization benched the Serbian rifler Nemanja "nexa" Isaković and the Danish in-game leader (IGL) Rasmus "HooXi" Nielsen after mixed results in the first semester of 2024.
For the rest of the year, we'll see G2 play with former M80 star Mario "malbsMd" Samayoa in the place of nexa, and the Polish veteran Janusz "Snax" Pogorzelski in the place of HooXi.
G2 already had a promising debut at the Esports World Cup earlier this month as they finished runners-up. They defeated The MongolZ, Team Spirit, and Virtus.pro, and lost to Natus Vincere in the grand finals.
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Team Liquid
Just like G2, Liquid went for an abrupt change following lackluster results in the first part of the year. The organization sold Felipe "skullz" Medeiros to FURIA and benched the AWPer/IGL Casper "cadiaN" Møller.
These removals opened up space for the arrivals of the Australian anchor Justin "jks" Savage and the promising Polish AWPer Roland "ultimate" Tomkowiak. Besides the new players, Liquid also hired Torbjørn "mithR" Nyborg to replace Wilton "zews" Prado as the head coach.
However, none of these new players will be Liquid's IGL. Instead, it seems that the star player Russel "Twistzz" van Dunkel will be the new captain. We'll see how it goes at the BLAST Premier Fall Groups as they will have their debut in the competition.
Cloud9
Rounding out the list of teams with the biggest changes at the BLAST Premier Fall Groups is Cloud9. The Russians are coming for the tournament with three new players in the form of riflers Nikita "Heavygod" Martynenko and Timofey "interz" Yakushin, and the AWPer Kaisar "ICY" Faiznurov.
This roster overhaul is a result of Cloud9 selling Denis "electroNic" Sharipov to Virtus.pro back in April, and benching Abay "HObbit" Khassenov and Ilya "Perfecto" Zalutskiy one week later. However, the team stopped playing tournaments in April and will only come back to action at the BLAST Premier Fall Groups.
That's all for now. Stay tuned to esports.gg for more BLAST Premier Fall Groups coverage.