Vitality has announced the much-awaited signing of ropz.
In a blockbuster move, Vitality has signed Robin "ropz" Kool to complete its CS2 lineup. The Estonian rifler joins the Bees after a successful stint with FaZe Clan. During his tenure, FaZe Clan lifted 9 Trophies, including both a Katowice and a Major win, and also unlocked the Intel Grand Slam in its fourth season. Now, ropz hopes to bring that same level of success to Vitality.
ropz replaces Spinx in Vitality
With ropz's signing, Vitality replaces one former FPL megastar in Spinx with another former FPL megastar. Over 2024, reports grew about disharmony in the Vitality camp, with coach Rémy "XTQZZZ" Quoniam confirming Spinx's request to explore his options. By the time Shanghai rolled around, Vitality was clear about the event being the team's last.
With FaZe's roster looking in similar shape, ropz's move to Vitality became an easy no-brainer. Similar to Spinx, ropz is a passive lurker, with great playmaking ability. Where the Israeli star falls short, however, is during pressure matches in arenas.
That's exactly where ropz shines. Throughout his time in FaZe, the youngster has grown into a strong secondary voice in the team, with the ability to break his team out of perilous scenarios. In Shanghai especially, the Estonian strung together a playoff run that would put many Major MVPs to shame.
Vitality will hope that ropz can bring some much needed experience to help the team in Arena matches, and provide Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut with the consistent duo that the French prodigy needs. With Shahar "flameZ" Shushan rounding out the star trio, Vitality will continue to hold the strongest set of star players across CS2.
Related articles
The end of one of modern CS' most influential partnerships
With ropz signing for Vitality, one of modern CS' most influential partnerships has come to an end. From the moment Finn "karrigan" Andersen joined MOUZ in 2019, the team was centered around the duo between him and ropz.
Overtime, karrigan molded ropz into a monstrous fragger, powering MOUZ's scorching run to 5-finals, earning 4-trophies. That run was cut-short due to COVID, with karrigan jumping ship to FaZe in early-2021.
Soon after, though, ropz joined him in FaZe, completing what would become one of the strongest rosters in CS history. The team dominated 2022, earning numerous accolades and trophies. 2023 was comparitively weaker for the team, with Vitality-G2 superteams stealing the show, but ropz was dominant across the year, especially with the release of CS2. Putting in uncontable hours in the server, ropz led the way for FaZe's run of finals across the early months of CS2.
Outside of his rookie years in 2017-18 with MOUZ, where Tomáš "oskar" Šťastný and Miikka "suNny" Kemppi were the team's stars, ropz has been the engine driving his teams' success. Signing with Vitality, ropz now faces a different challenge. Can the Estonian thrive as a secondary star, backing up ZywOo's brilliant sniper play? And can Vitality harness these brilliant stars into an era-defining roster?
Stay tuned to esports.gg for more CS2 news.
