Astralis and CS:GO coach Nicolai “Hunden” Petersen agreed to and signed a deal for him to take on a coaching position at the Danish organization while he was still under contract with another Danish organization in Heroic, according to emails and text messages acquired by esports reporter Richard Lewis.
Hunden was reportedly signed to a contract with Heroic from May 2020 to May 2022, but according to documents from Heroic’s ongoing legal battle with Hunden, Astralis reached out to Hunden in March 2021 with a coaching role offer.
The screengrabs in Lewis’ report show a back-and-forth between Astralis director of sports Kasper Hvidt and coach Hunden via text message and email, including a message that seems to confirm that Hunden digitally signed an employment contract offered to him by Astralis on April 2, 2021. During this time, Hunden was actively suspended by Heroic and the Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC) for his use of the in-game spectator bug but was still under contract with Heroic. Thirty-seven total coaches were suspended by the ESIC for using that bug back in September 2020.
According to Lewis, other documents in his possession indicate that not only did Hunden sign a deal with Astralis, but that someone at Astralis had reportedly also asked him to recommend and recruit players for the organization while still contracted to Heroic, and that the organization reportedly “connected Petersen with a lawyer for the purposes of getting out of his Heroic contract.”
Lewis also noted in his report that it was Hunden’s action of leaking strategic Heroic documents to Astralis that soured the deal between the two parties, with Astralis reportedly “chastising” Hunden for doing so. Back in July 2021, Heroic terminated its contract with Hunden and announced it would open a legal process against him for sharing strategy assets with “a key individual at a major competitor.” He was later banned by ESIC again for two years.
Related: Who is HUNDEN and why was he banned from CS:GO?
Astralis announced that Hunden had joined the organization as an analyst for the CS:GO division this past January.
More information and documentation regarding these past interactions between Hunden and Astralis are set to be published by Lewis in the near future.
