Astralis announced the signing of Danish AWPer Asger ‘Farlig’ Jensen via Twitter. The move comes after Astralis were unable to make it to the playoffs of IEM Katowice 2022. Astralis’ results have been below par even after the signing of Benjamin ‘blameF’ Bremer and Kristian ‘k0nfig’ Wienecke. Farlig will take over the role of Main AWP, while Phillip ‘Lucky’ Ewald has been moved to the bench, after spending 7 months with the roster.
Astralis’ CSGO roster has been in an up and down state ever since the departure of superstar Nicolai ‘dev1ce’ Reedtz. Since then the team has found it difficult to find somebody to fill his shoes, having to make do with ‘dupreeh’ and ‘gla1ve’ AWPing. Once they signed Lucky, it was expected that the results would improve but they have been in a middling state since then. Their best finish in the last year has been a top 3 finish at BLAST Premier Fall Finals.
After dev1ce left, they found their groove back for a bit at IEM Cologne, but were knocked out in the semis. They then qualified for the PGL Major after a 4th place finish at IEM Fall RMR and benched bubzkji as gla1ve returned to the roster. They qualified for the Legends stage at PGL Stockholm but couldn’t do anything after that and were sent home in 12-14th place.
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Following an early exit, dupreeh, Magisk and zonic were moved to the bench as blameF, k0nfig and former CS 1.6 player ave were signed to the roster. The roster then peaked in their honeymoon period as they finished 3rd at BLAST Premier Fall finals 2021. But even then it was gla1ve AWPing over Lucky and the problems were there for all to see.
Following their exit from IEM Katowice 2022 at the hands of G2, Astralis decided to bench Lucky, unable to get the best out of him, and have signed Farlig to their main roster. Farlig has previously played for Copenhagen Flames, GODSENT, and then FunPlus Phoenix. He has been on the bench ever since FPX stopped their CSGO operations.
Asger possesses many of the qualities we need on the team: He is an aggressive impact player who’s not afraid to take on the fight and take initiative. He creates space for his teammates, while at the same time contributing to the team dynamics by being the person he is. You should always be careful not to put too much pressure on new players, but we actually expect Asger’s playing style and skills will add positively to his teammates’ performance and help us take the next important steps The change means that we have to bench Philip “Lucky” Ewald. For 7 months he has worked with himself and the team, but, unfortunately and despite all his and the team’s work, we have not been able to get the best out of him. Philip is a cool and very well-liked guy with some obvious skills we have not managed to unfold. He will stay on contract for now, and no matter what happens, I am sure we will hear more from ‘Lucky’ in the future” Hvidt added.
Kasper Hvidt, Director of Sports at Astralis
More about the announcement can be read here.
Astralis CSGO are now:
- Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander
- Andreas “Xyp9x” Højsleth
- Benjamin “blameF” Bremer
- Kristian “k0nfig” Wienecke
- Asger “Farlig” Jensen
- Alexander “ave” Holdt (coach)
- Philip “Lucky” Ewald (benched)
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