Forgotten CS:GO pro makes noise in CS2 by winning first notable event in 7 years

Veteran Counter-Strike pro Denis “seized” Kostin just had a career resurgence. The former Natus Vincere player led his team 9Pandas to victory at a $100,000 LAN tournament called PARI, Please on Nov. 20, breaking a streak of seven years without any LAN titles.

All in all, 9Pandas’ campaign was one of those beautiful Cinderella runs that have become so rare nowadays in the esports industry. Seized and his teammates Daniil “d1Ledez” Kustov, Timur “clax” Sabirov, Artyom “iDISBALANCE” Egorov, and Aleksandr “glowiing” Matsiyevich arrived at PARI, Please as the second-lowest rated team at the event, according to HLTV’s rankings, but collected one scalp after another as they defeated BetBoom, MIBR, and FURIA on their way to the grand finals.

While most CS2 fans expected Eternal Fire to put an end to 9Pandas’ winning streak at PARI, Please, seized’s team capitalized on the opportunity and made quick work out of XANTARES’ men as they won the series 3-0 to lift the trophy and win $60,000.

After PARI, Please was over, seized didn’t hold back on his emotions in an interview with HLTV. “It’s difficult to convey my emotions, even though this is not some major tournament,” the Russian player said. “But it’s incredibly nice because incredible work was done. I have no words, I’m very happy.”

Before this victory, seized spent many years away from the spotlight as he stopped attending S-tier CS:GO events in 2018, the year he officially departed Natus Vincere. Seized spent the years since then jumping between less-known teams and never really showed until now that he could make a comeback.

The victory at PARI, Please will give seized and the rest of the players on 9Pandas the opportunity to be invited to more tournaments as they jumped from 48th to 20th in HLTV’s rankings in less than a month. We’ll see if they can keep up this form now that all the other teams will be analyzing how they play, but seized already has one goal in mind—qualifying for his first Valve-sponsored tournament since the ELEAGUE Boston Major in 2018.