Three top names from Scandinavia will be crossing the pond to compete for one of North America’s top esports organizations.
Former NiP entry-fragger Adam “friberg” Friberg, FaZe Clan’s previous AWPer Aleksi “allu” Jalli, and North star player Emil “Magiskb0Y” Reif will be competing for OpTic Gaming in the upcoming season of ESL Pro League. All teams looking to participate in the upcoming sixth season of the league were expected to submit a roster on Aug. 18—and since the OpTic roster was discovered on the ESL Pro League’s official team page, the line-up appears to be legitimate.
This will be the second CS:GO team friberg will have competed on in an official capacity, as his nearly five-year-long tenure with NiP came to an end on July 31. While on that team friberg was widely regarded as one of the strongest players in CS:GO’s competitive history, winning more than a dozen LAN events in total.
Aside from friberg, the OpTic roster will also feature recent FaZe Clan AWPer allu, who prior to the Kraków Major looked to be one of the strongest teams in the world. Magiskb0Y spent less than three weeks on the bench before being acquired by OpTic.
The trio will join Spaniard Oscar “mixwell” Cañellas, who prior to these changes was the only European player on the roster.
Despite the addition of these three names, however, the OpTic roster is still currently missing a permanent fifth player. Veteran player Keith “NAF” Markovic will not be competing with the roster in the upcoming ESL Pro League season, and will only act as a stand-in for the first week of games. This is presumably due to complications surrounding OpTic’s choice of fifth, Kevin “HS” Tarn, and the Penta organizaiton being unwilling to release him.
OpTic are scheduled to compete in the opening game of the upcoming season of ESL Pro League against Ghost Gaming on Aug. 22, at 6:00pm CT.
