European Dota 2 superpower OG has finally announced their CS:GO roster, months after speculation and leaks had revealed their interest in putting a team together.
The team is widely considered to be the best team of all-time in Dota 2, after winning TI8 despite being predicted to finish in last place after having to rebuild their roster with just two months before the event. They would then go on to become the first team to ever win two TI’s, winning back to back and taking TI9 in an extremely convincing fashion.
Now the organization is looking to become world champion’s in Counter-Strike, picking up a team of players who have nearly all seen success already in the pro scene, with multiple major titles and grand final appearances among them.
You've all been waiting for this!
After 4 Majors and 2 TI on Dota 2 it's now time to tame another colossus.Welcome to our OG CS:GO team:@NBK@Officialvalde@AleksibCSGO@m4ntuu
@ISSAAcsgoDo you want to see more? It's here: https://t.co/UMKKnD6S8q#DreamOG pic.twitter.com/f3my8Blrtl
— OG CS:GO (@OGcsgo) December 4, 2019
The team will be led by Aleksi ‘Aleksib’ Virolainen, the former ENCE shot-caller who helped to put Finland on the map by leading his former squad to a major final appearance at IEM Katowice 2019, losing to Astralis in the grand finals before being controversially kicked from the team.
Two-time major winner Nathan ‘NBK-’ Schmitt joins the team having been released from Team Vitality in September after just under a year with the fully French squad. Having appeared three times in the HLTV top 20 list, last featuring in 2015, he is now looking to revitalize himself in this new roster.
Issa ‘Issaa’ Murad joins the team from Hellraisers, after three years with the org. His most notable finishes include a quarter-final appearance in IEM Katowice 2019 and an MVP performance at Dreamhack Open Tours 2018, where he would lose the grand final 2-0 to North.
One of the players who won in that grand final is Valdemar ‘Valde’ Bjørn Vangså who joins from North after a couple of years with the Danish roster where he would win four tournaments. Seen as a player who can be a star fragger when given the right roles, he will look to be playing confident and stepping up to show why he was included on the 2018 HLTV top 20.
The last and most challenging piece of the puzzle for OG was to find an awper. After courting SJ sniper Jamppi originally, the team shied away from the young Finn when it was discovered a VAC banned account could be linked back to him, which would prevent him from playing in Valve events. The next man up was poizon, another young awper who is very highly rated, however their offer to the Bulgarian was outshined by that of North American side Complexity who were rebuilding their roster in order to try and challenge at the top of the CS scene.
Mateusz ‘mantuu’ Wilczewski was the man chosen for the job and the 22-year-old Polish/British player joins from Alternate Attax where he never got a chance to prove himself against tier-one opposition but was dominant within the tier two scene. He will now look to prove himself in his first chance on what could be a top team within CS:GO very soon.
Rumors are circulating that OG will make their debut as the last team to attend the cs_summit 5 on December 12, however, nothing has been confirmed at this time. Co-owner and offlaner for the Dota 2 team did tweet about ‘stuff coming tomorrow,’ so it may not be long until we hear more about OG’s new Counter-Strike team.
