MSL signs with North again after more than a year away

It looks like Mathias “MSL” Lauridsen is set to make his return to North’s CS:GO team. MSL hasn’t been officially announced by North, but the in-game leader’s name appeared in the organization’s newest jersey reveal video today.

It’s still unknown who MSL will be replacing on North. Nicklas Gade took over as the in-game leader in October when Valdemar “valde” Bjørn was benched. The most obvious choice would be to replace Jakob “JUGi” Hansen, the main sniper of the team.

JUGi never really flourished on North and MSL has shown in the past that he’s more than capable of playing with the AWP. MSL isn’t flashy, but he gets his kills and is a great support player.

MSL has been inactive since October when OpTic Gaming disbanded. He led that squad to a win at DreamHack Open Summer in June 2019, beating Team Ancient in the grand finals.

If MSL returns to North, this will be his second stint with the Danish organization. He was the in-game leader of the Dignitas squad that helped create North in January 2017. MSL helped North win several DreamHack tournaments, but the most important was at DreamHack Masters Stockholm in September 2018 when North outplayed Astralis, the best team in the world, in the grand finals. MSL was named the tournament MVP.

MSL was kicked from North in the same month after the team failed to play at the same level at the FACEIT London Major, which took place right after DreamHack Masters Stockholm.

After today’s video, North likely won’t take too long to announce who’s getting benched. The team is scheduled to play at DreamHack Open Leipzig next week.