OG to reportedly bench valde and niko from CS:GO lineup

The Danish CS:GO duo of Valdemar “valde” Vangså and Nikolaj “niko” Kristensen is set to be benched by OG, according to a report by French outlet 1pv.fr.

The decision to move valde and niko to the bench comes weeks after OG failed to qualify for the PGL Antwerp Major via the European Regional Major Ranking (RMR) tournament following defeats to Natus Vincere, Eternal Fire, and forZe. Should these roster changes be confirmed, OG would be depleted to just Shahar “flameZ” Shushan, Nemanja “nexa” Isaković, and Mateusz “⁠mantuu⁠” Wilczewski.

Valde has been playing for OG since December 2019, when the European organization known for its success in Dota 2 entered the Counter-Strike scene, and most notably helped the team to finish as the runners-up to Virtus Pro in Flashpoint season two in December 2020. Niko, on the other hand, joined OG in March 2021.

OG also missed the PGL Stockholm Major last year and was likely expecting that the arrival of nexa in place of Aleksi “Aleksib” Virolainen would help turn things around. But he failed to lead the squad to the Major, just like Aleksib did. OG entered CS:GO destined to be one of the top teams in Europe but they’ve lacked consistency during these past few years.

It’s unclear at this point who OG will bring on to replace valde and niko, but it will have some interesting choices since more teams will be making changes after the conclusion of the PGL Antwerp Major for the start of another Major cycle.