Team Vitality’s Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team is set to make sweeping changes to their roster, according to a report from 1pv.fr. The Astralis soon-to-be free agents, Emil “Magisk” Reif, Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussen and Danny “zonic” Sørensen, will replace Richard “shox” Papillon, Jayson “Kyojin” Nguyen Van and Rémy “XTQZZZ” Quoniam on Vitality.
These changes would come in light of Vitality’s loss to Natus Vincere in the quarter finals of the PGL Major Stockholm yesterday. While losing to the world’s number one team in Na’Vi, Vitality struggled earlier in the Legends stage of the tournament, where they went 2-3 to barely qualify for playoffs.
The reported move would only leave in-game leader Dan “apEX” Madesclaire, young upcoming talent Kévin “misutaaa” Rabier and the AWPing superstar Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut from the current Vitality lineup.
It’s a major overhaul for the all-French roster if the move goes through, as the team would swap to a mix of Danish and French players. Vitality is also a French organization and, along with other orgs (like the now defunct Team LDLC) have historically fielded an all or mostly French squad. The departure from that homogeny could be another blow to a French scene that’s has lost many of its former stars, as Vincent “Happy” Cervoni Schopenhauer, Nathan “NBK-” Schmitt and Cédric “RpK” Guipouy have gone into retirement.
The pedigree of the Astralis trio speaks for itself, as they are three of the most decorated individuals in CS:GO from all the tournament wins accrued during their time with the Danish organization. Astralis recently signed Benjamin “blameF” Bremer and Kristian “k0nfig” Wienecke and announced that zonic, dupreeh and Magisk would be free to explore other options ahead of their contracts expiring in the new year.
Vitality have not responded for comment by the time of publication. This story will be updated to include any response from the French organization.
If the report is confirmed, the new Vitality roster would be as follows:
- Dan “apEX” Madesclaire
- Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut
- Kévin “misutaaa” Rabier
- Emil “Magisk” Reif
- Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussen
- Danny “zonic” Sørensen (coach)
