Four-time CS:GO Major champion gla1ve is returning to Astralis’ lineup, the organization announced today.
The captain is coming back to competitive play after three and a half months on medical leave alongside Xyp9x. Both players left Astralis’ active roster in May after Astralis won the first Regional Major Ranking (RMR) tournament in Europe, ESL One: Road to Rio. At the time, gla1ve had symptoms of stress and burnout.
Gla1ve will be replacing Patrick “es3tag” Hansen in Astralis’ lineup. Es3tag arrived on Astralis in July after his contract with Heroic expired. He played his first tournament with the Danish powerhouse last month at ESL One Cologne Europe.
Es3tag, in fact, was statistically the best player on Astralis during ESL One Cologne Europe, according to HLTV’s statistics. The 24-year-old finished the tournament with an average of a 1.21 rating across six maps. For now, es3tag will be “observing and analyzing the gameplay, as well as assisting with preparation for upcoming matches,” Astralis said.
Gla1ve said he’s “really excited” to come back. The captain was helping head coach Danny “zonic” Sørensen with tactics and analysis, but now, he’ll play his first match in months against Complexity today at 10:30am CT in ESL Pro League season 12 Europe. Although zonic thinks it’s fantastic to have gla1ve back on the team, he said it was hard to take es3tag out because he’s been doing a great job during tournament play and practice.
“In the coming months, all of our available players will get to play, and our priority will always be to go into tournaments with the strongest possible roster,” zonic said. “It will depend on the opponent and how the players are performing, as well as their need for breaks, but other than having more great players for the team, I also have more eyes to help me analyze the games.”
With gla1ve back on the roster, it’s expected that he’ll be in-game leading Astralis. The Danes used Magisk as their in-game leader during gla1ve’s absence.
