Gla1ve, the captain of Astralis’ CS:GO team, has dismissed rumors spread in the community that Astralis won’t field dev1ce at Elisa Masters Espoo because he’s not playing individually well yet.
Dev1ce has been absent from CS:GO officials since December 2021, when he was still a part of Ninjas in Pyjamas. He took a long medical leave before returning to Astralis in October mere days ahead of the start of IEM Rio Major, a Valve-sponsored tournament Astralis failed to qualify for.
“He’s been really good,” gla1ve said in an interview published on Astralis’ Twitter. “We’ve played with him in practice for some time. We wanted to see if he was still good, and he has been playing really well. We wanted him to play, and I also think he’s holding back a bit because he has been out for nine months. You need a slow start, especially with all the traveling we do.”
The CS:GO community was eager to see dev1ce back in action at Elisa Masters Espoo after so much time away from the servers, especially because it’s a tournament without any top 10 teams in the world, meaning there would be less pressure on dev1ce’s shoulders.
Astralis’ sports director Kasper Hvidt had already informed fans that dev1ce wouldn’t play this week at Elisa Masters Espoo because the team doesn’t want to force anything and want to create the best version of dev1ce.
That said, it’s unlikely that the rumors that dev1ce is rusty after so many months away from the competitive scene will go away before he actually shows the world that he’s still a top-tier player. Astralis also released a clip today featuring some of dev1ce’s highlights in FACEIT PUGs.
