TSM might not be returning to Counter-Strike esports as soon as expected, despite all the hype that has been created over the past few months.
Blix reported on July 31 that the French head coach Rémy “XTQZZZ” Quoniam has pulled away from the project and the coach himself confirmed it to HLTV. Blix also reported that TSM’s project could fall through entirely because there’s an ongoing disagreement between the players and the organization over “alleged breaches in verbal agreements” related to the length of their contracts and some bonuses.
TSM has been eyeing a return to CS:GO since 2022, but it wasn’t until this year that the organization really started to move in that direction. The roster was leaked on July 24 and it was composed of former Into the Breach aggressive rifler Cai “CYPHER” Watson, ex-G2 player Audric “JACKZ” Jug, former North in-game leader Valdemar “valde” Vangså, former Cloud9 support Timofey “interz” Yakushin, and the young AWPer Mădălin-Andrei “MoDo”’ Mirea.
Related: Live Counter-Strike 2023 roster tracker: CS:GO signings and rumors ahead of CS2 release
The debut of the new TSM roster was set to happen at the CCT Online Finals Two, which will kick off on Aug. 2, but the organization reportedly pulled out of the competition on July 29, according to Dust2.us. Now that we know XTQZZZ is no longer involved with TSM and the whole project might fall apart, it makes sense why TSM has seemingly decided to not debut at that tournament.
Sources told Blix that TSM might make more roster changes amid the contractual disagreements that are in place. The North American organization has been away from the CS:GO ecosystem since January 2017, when it parted ways with an NA team over a player rights dispute with in-game leader Sean Gares.
