Heroic have made a massive abrupt change to their CS:GO roster. Nikolaj “niko” Kristensen and Johannes “b0RUP” Borup have been moved to the bench following Heroic’s early exit from IEM Katowice. Ismail “refrezh” Ali and Ramsus “sjuush” Beck will replace them in the main lineup.
Heroic have benched niko and b0RUP, replacing them with Refrezh and sjuush (Image via Heroic)
Heroic’s five-man Danish core had been together for over 10 months and found great success at their peak. Their most impressive win came at ESL One Cologne 2020 Europe where they swept Vitality in the Grand Finals. Heroic enjoyed three months in the top three ranked teams worldwide after that, hitting first at the beginning of October.
Recently, however, things have not been so hot for the Danish squad. Heroic closed out their 2020 with four straight subpar finishes, failing to qualify for the BLAST Global Finals and being eliminated from the IEM Global Challenge in 7th-8th among them. Their recent early exit at IEM Katowice in 9th-12th was apparently the final straw.
The New Roster
Coming in to bolster Heroic’s ranks are refrezh and sjuush, two Danish players who most recently played with MAD Lions. While the Lions were still an active roster up to this point, the team had not entered a tournament since Flashpoint Season 2 in early December. Sjuush was with MAD Lions ever since they acquired the Tricked Esport roster in late 2019, while refrezh joined them recently in October 2020.
In their announcement, Heroic states “Sjuush is known for his support role on his previous teams – a role he will also take on in Heroic.” Refrezh on the other hand will likely try and slot into niko’s old role as an entry fragger. When asked about the potential of the new roster, team captain Casper “cadiaN” Moller said, “We have had a successful run with the last roster but we feel that we can come even further with these changes to the team.”
Potential landing spots for niko and b0RUP, as well as replacement players for MAD Lions are currently unknown. As for Heroic, their new roster will debut at ESL Pro League Season 13 beginning on March 8.
Heroic is now:
Casper “cadiaN” Moller
Martin “stavn” Lund
Rene “TeSeS” Madsen
Ismail “refrezh” Ali
Ramsus “sjuush” Beck
