Team Spirit bring back magixx and zont1x, bench chopper and zweih as CS2 rostermania gets underway

Team Spirit have made the first major move of the CS2 rostermania heading into the 2026 season, by confirming that zont1x and magixx are back in the active lineup. The pair are replacing chopper and zweih, with magixx confirmed to be picking up the IGL mantle for the first time in his career.

Team Spirit switch things around for a solution to T-side woes

The second half of 2025 hasn’t exactly gone to plan for Team Spirit. An IEM Cologne 2025 victory papered over the cracks, but when zont1x was replaced by tN1R, the team really started to look unbalanced. Woeful T-sides from chopper were being hidden by donk’s raw firepower, and “donk go kill” felt as though it had become more than a meme.

Heading into 2026, enough is enough for Team Spirit. Rather than making big moves in the market, it has decided to go with an internal solution. With chopper and zweih out, magixx and zont1x are recalled. While zweih only joined in mid-2025, he finds himself benched after just six months. Meanwhile, chopper has been with Team Spirit since 2019, making this a big shakeup for the team.

Сhanges in the Team Spirit CS2 roster

Following the StarLadder Budapest Major and after reviewing the results of the current season, we’ve made a decision to alter our main CS2 roster.

Starting from today, Leonid @chopperis Vishnyakov and Ivan @zweih1437 Gogin are out of the… pic.twitter.com/2HzBrao4F1

— Team Spirit CS2 (@Team__Spirit) December 18, 2025

As IGL, chopper won all of Counter-Strike’s biggest trophies with Team Spirit. Katowice, Cologne, and a Major, he did it all. Now, though, it’s clear that new ideas are needed to help shape their T-sides going forward. With donk in the team, the feeling is that they should be a much more potent force on that side.