One of the strongest Counter-Strike: Global Offensive squads from Denmark is shaking things up.
Team Heroic AWPer and co-founder Michael “Friis” Jørgensen has been placed on the bench, the organization has revealed. Friis, who is listed as one of the co-owners of the organization, has played with the team since its inception in August 2016.
At the moment it’s not exactly clear what prompted the team to bench the 27-year-old veteran (who will have been competing for close to ten years in 2017), especially considering the fact that Friis himself posted on social media about scrims at the beginning for the year. Additionally, the Danish squad placed 3rd-4th out of the eight teams that competed at DreamHack Leipzig on Jan. 13-15.
Shortly after being assembled, Heroic went on to place respectably at a number of international LAN tournaments. This included multiple top four finishes, as well as two victories at PowerLan and the 2016 International Gaming League grand finals.
Heroic said that the benching is temporary. The team will be fielding current Rogue AWPer Casper “cadiaN” Møller in its upcoming tournament matches. CadiaN is no stranger to the majority of Heroic’s roster, having competed with them in SK Gaming’s previous CS:GO roster between late 2015 and early 2016.
While the move does seem dramatic, it’s not all too surprising. Given the fact that the ELEAGUE Major will be concluding on Jan. 29, plenty of teams will be looking to shuffle their rosters. We’ll likely be seeing a lot more player movement in a week’s time.