OpTic Gaming’s CS:GO lineup have replaced Ismail “refrezh” Ali with René “cajunb” Borg, the in-game leader Mathias “MSL” Lauridsen announced.
Cajunb is one of the most experienced Danish players in the CS:GO scene. He represented OpTic from February 2018 to March 2019. Cajunb signed a contract with Cloud9 in April but he was cut from the roster when the North American organization revamped its lineup in July.
Refrezh, on the other hand, got his first opportunity with top-level competition when he was poached by OpTic in December 2018 after his great performance at BLAST Pro Series Lisboa while standing in for Cloud9.
The team decided to make this change after cajunb stood in for refrezh at GG.BET New York Invitational this week and OpTic qualified for ESL One New York, according to MSL.
“After having played with cajunb in the past and during the qualifier, we felt he was the guy we needed,” MSL said. “In the qualifier, we played as a team and it felt like we finally clicked in-game. He brings a lot of experience, stability, doesn’t make many mistakes (which is rare these days) and is really good individually.”
Although MSL said that refrezh has a lot of potential, he explained that the team couldn’t fit two players with the same roles in the team but didn’t reveal who’s involved in this positional clash.
The players are still looking for a new organization since OpTic was sold to Immortals, who already owns MIBR, in June and a brand can’t manage two teams, according to Valve’s rules. MSL and crew received some offers but they don’t want to move to the United States.
OpTic won’t play at the StarLadder Berlin Major this month. Their next scheduled tournament is ESL One New York, which starts on Sept. 26.
