When pressure meets mismatched roles and a lack of leadership, Astralis' RMR is the result

We dive into Astralis' collapse at IEM Katowice and the PGL Copenhagen RMR — and whether br0 and device as the IGL can turn things around.

Astralis have had crises before. They've been in a semi-permanent state of flux ever since Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander and Andreas "⁠Xyp9x⁠" Højsleth opted to bench themselves in 2020 as the weight of internal expectations wore them down.

The star of Astralis has featured on the chests of 22 players since their foundation in 2016, but 14 of those players were handed debuts in the last four years. The infrastructure behind the organization, one that was praised so heavily when their historic core were winning every other trophy, has completely collapsed after the departures of Danny "⁠zonic⁠" Sørensen and Lars Robl.

The latest failure at the European RMR is the most damning yet. The upcoming Major is in the Danish capital in part because of the impact of Astralis' greatest roster, a side that put not just the esports but the organization firmly into the Danish zeitgeist.

But Astralis 2.0 will be absent. Just one player from that era will be playing in the first CS2 Major, re-inspired in-game leader gla1ve, the same gla1ve that looked so ineffectual in Astralis post-COVID.

It is the third Major Astralis will miss in a row. The roster has not made it into the top sixteen of a Major since PGL Stockholm, just before zonic, Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen and Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif departed for Vitality. Fans will have debates about the stocks of the great core, of how certain players maintained their level and how others have not, but the greatest faller is the organization — literally, judging by their short stint as a public company.

Missing Rio was a dagger, a wound partially healed by the return of Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz. Paris was the straw that broke gla1ve and Xyp9x's back. But Copenhagen is different. The way forward is unclear, even after benching Benjamin "⁠blameF⁠" Bremer.

Signing Jakob "⁠jabbi⁠" Nygaard and Martin "⁠stavn⁠" Lund, amid all the controversy, was supposed to be worth it because it was not a gamble in-game. They would put four of the five best Danish players of 2023 into the same lineup and frag their way to the Royal Arena. Even at 50%, this lineup should have had the talent to blag their way into stickers, at least.

A sign of their (misplaced) confidence was that after Peter "⁠casle⁠" Ardenskjold was removed at the end of 2023 no new coach arrived for the Major cycle. Casper "⁠ruggah⁠" Due's deal ran out after the Major, so Astralis were happy to wait. Analyst Mathias "⁠R0nic⁠" Pinholt came in, but was not and could not be the type of domineering figure a team this stacked needed in the pressure moments.

Leadership is the obvious place to start the post-mortem, the clear malaise in so many superteams down the years. FaZe struggled before Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen came in. G2's inconsistencies with Richard "⁠shox⁠" Papillon at the helm were obvious. Liquid never clicked without Nick "⁠nitr0⁠" Cannella. Cloud9 had everything ready to go on paper, but Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov was not cut out to be the full-time captain.

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Astralis bench blameF after RMR fiasco

blameF is not an exact fit for these examples. He led Complexity's Juggernaut in-game and Astralis made clear improvements when he took over from gla1ve in the summer of 2023.

But it is no coincidence that all six of the top-ranked teams sport a traditional supportive in-game leader: karrigan, Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire, Leonid "⁠chopper⁠" Vishnyakov, Kamil "⁠siuhy⁠" Szkaradek, Rasmus "⁠HooXi⁠" Nielsen, and Aleksi "⁠Aleksib⁠" Virolainen. These players have devoted their lives to the captaincy, and understand what that means.

blameF became the number one player on FACEIT over the winter break, keeping his individual form in top knick. But can you imagine karrigan or apEX devoting that many hours to PUGs just after the formation of a new superteam?

He was also criticized for letting Victor "⁠Staehr⁠" Staehr conduct the exit interview after Astralis were eliminated from RMR contention. That loss was his to shoulder. His players needed protecting, not throwing to the wolves.

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Community reacts: Astralis miss out on PGL Major Copenhagen

Star players with a good brain for the game often think they can be great in-game leaders, but tactical knowledge is just one part of a gigantic puzzle.

"In-game leading is only 10% on the server," Marco "⁠Snappi⁠" Pfeiffer told Duncan "⁠Thorin⁠" Shields in a January 2024 podcast. "The rest is about being a captain off the server, doing a lot of work to be ready for theory sessions and practice, making sure you are setting an example, you have to have a lot of passion and work ethic to make it work."

blameF is clearly a hard worker. That is not the problem here. But he was still a star player. He kept all of his star positions and star numbers. He is more of a big brother, someone you copy, than a stern father figure laying out instructions. A lack of a coach only exacerbates this issue.

Without a HooXi-like figure to jump around corners and anchor the small sites, natural star players like jabbi and Staehr have to make sacrifices. Staehr has risen to that challenge with aplomb, but in jabbi's case the situation is more stark.

jabbi was a solid piece of the HEROIC puzzle with a 1.12 CT rating in rotator roles during his time there. In Astralis, that has dropped to 1.03 overall, 0.93 on LAN in 2024, and 0.81 in his last two events in Katowice and Bucharest.

His confidence has taken a noticeable hit, and anchor roles mean fewer eco-frags to boost yourself back up. When he is tested it is with a full weapon round execute, and too often jabbi would go one and done. His headshot aim is one of his best assets, but when his head drops his spray gets shakier and wider and lets him down. His accuracy once an enemy was spotted, tracked by Leetify, is just 35%, two points lower than a FACEIT level 10's average.

His T rating improves to reasonable, if not good, levels, as he makes similar aggressive lurks and bomb-site entry paths as he did in HEROIC. On the offense it is instead stavn who joins Staehr in having his game turn upside down.

stavn was the main map control player for HEROIC, filling the IGL roaming roles with Casper "⁠cadiaN⁠" Møller on the AWP. This entailed plenty of utility usage, and predominately being the trade fragger in opening skirmishes. For Astralis it's blameF bringing up the rear and stavn had to be the primary aggressor.

On maps like Ancient and Vertigo, stavn has even taken up some lurk roles and operates solo fairly often. He is quite simply too similar to blameF, both being trade-dominant but passive map control players on T. When stavn is tasked with aggressive space-taking on maps like Overpass, it is rarely with the conviction required.

HEROIC were the kings of trading, but Astralis are the paupers. The teamplay is just not there.

On round three, against 9 Pandas, Astralis rotated back to A late only for both blameF and stavn to stop to throw utility when one of them just had to take the space quickly. Positions can be changed, but it is harder to change actual playstyles; stavn will always trend towards passive, and does not look comfortable when he is forced into duels he would not normally take.

It is also worth diving into Staehr. He is tasked with small sites and the fairly passive low-action T spot default roles like Connector on Overpass or Door on Nuke. He has the grenades and defuse kit on pistol rounds, throws more flashes per round than the other three riflers, and is the bomb-site entry on executes called from spawn.

But in slow defaults, his positions mean he is alive in plenty of late-round situations. Most teams have their star players throw the utility to allow them to bait in a fashion that is still useful to the round. Staehr, seemingly by accident, has become that type of closer and has a 1.06 rating on T side, the second highest.

The way Staehr has played also makes the Rasmus "⁠sjuush⁠" Beck conversation less relevant; signing HEROIC's anchor would not solve Astralis' structure issues in the map control pack and Staehr is already doing quite well in most anchor roles. The 19-year-old is caught off guard more often than sjuush, but what else can you expect from someone so new to the role?

We should also not excuse star duo device and blameF from criticism. device tweeted to say that he is "not having any fun playing whatsoever at the moment, which is seen on [his] performance." AWPing is a different beast in CS2, but device has struggled more than you would expect a player of his calibre to. Players like Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov have proved a passive style can still work, while Ilya "⁠m0NESY⁠" Osipov is at the top of his game playing the aggressive type of sniping device did so well in 2023.

Confidence is the buzzword we will use again. device has been Mr. Reliable for so long, but has been missing shots in the William "⁠draken⁠" Sundin 30 degree window. At 28 years old, you wouldn't be as crazy to wonder how many times he can come back from adversity and remain a top 5 AWPer in the world as you would have been a few months ago.

blameF's benching is an unfortunate necessity. He plays the same role as star seven-figure new signing stavn. His playstyle has turned him into a scarecrow for community hate, all his good play washed away by his propensity for saving, changing into prime Mareks "⁠YEKINDAR⁠" Gaļinskis against ecos, and how infrequently he goes into executes first. And, as we've discussed, his leadership.

But he was not solely to blame. When every player except Staehr is struggling, it is more than just system, role fit, and individual form. The storm of community hate around Astralis ever since HEROIC's inflammatory October 25 statement has only become more and more all-encompassing as time wears on and results fail to materialize.

No sports psychologist or diet program would have prevented that affecting stavn and jabbi, in particular. Their December 21 statement reeked of Astralis' PR department interference, and came too late to turn a one-way tide.

Astralis, after sinking such significant cost, need to provide all of the pastoral care they can to two young players who simply went about a job change in the wrong way. The human side to stavn and jabbi will be just as, if not more, important as any change to role or style in the server.

That will be tested immediately, as Astralis ring the changes once again. ruggah and sports director Kasper Straube have acted swiftly to bring in Alexander "⁠br0⁠" Bro from Monte.

br0 arrives as a more selfless map control rifler to build around. He is a René "⁠TeSeS⁠" Madsen figure, an anchor on CT side and plays map control on T, which will unlock stavn to return to his roaming HEROIC role.

It should also free jabbi up to return to more active CT positions on some maps, presuming Staehr and br0 continue as anchors. The structure is immediately better than the blameF roster for Astralis' new signings to succeed.

There's just one problem. br0 is no in-game leader. Instead, device will take up in-game leadership to mimic the team structure of cadiaN's HEROIC.

device, like blameF did, knows a lot about the game, obviously. But is this not making the same mistake that the organization made with blameF?

The banker move expected by many was to make stavn the star player in map control again by signing a selfless, traditional, in-game leader who can rally the troops out of the server. You can understand Astralis' need to move quickly to allow the team to practice, leaving them to pick from a small pool of players who also missed the Major, but rushing into device as captain seems unwise in a region so jam-packed full of in-game leaders.

Fine: karrigan and Snappi are high-ticket items, and hard to extract. A G2 collapse in Copenhagen could free up HooXi to re-unite with jabbi and offer the kind of high-freedom sacrificial leadership Astralis are lacking, but the same questions about his fragging will remain. If we were in a movie, gla1ve could return, re-invigorated by CS2 and his run to Spodek with ENCE, and free to replace blameF in his preferred rotator roles. But, in real life, that might prove harder.

In terms of less proven talent, free agent Thomas "⁠birdfromsky⁠" Due-Frederiksen is a local favorite, Patrick "⁠Patti⁠" Larsen has impressed at ECSTATIC, and Marcus "⁠maNkz⁠" Kjeldsen did very well at M80 before taking time off for personal reasons, but it is hard to see them as players who could command respect from players as tenured as device and stavn. You can see why Astralis found a new captain from within.

ruggah played alongside device at the start of his CS:Source career

The number one priority for that new captain (and coach), regardless of any roster changes, has to be re-invigorating personnel that have looked down in the dumps throughout their time together. The Johannes "⁠b0RUP⁠" Borup and Christian "⁠Buzz⁠" Andersen iteration lacked firepower but came into IEM Cologne 2023 with a perfect role and personality fit, cheering and whooping their way past a dysfunctional HEROIC straight into the top four.

For this to work, device needs to fully commit to the Snappi and karrigan model of the pastoral figure in and out of the server. He cannot just be the team's big brother; he needs to show discipline too. He needs to conduct the exit interviews. He has to sacrifice PUGs and individual work for team prep. If he repeats blameF's mistakes, Astralis will be back in the transfer market in another three months.

But, however unlikely it seems, device could be the exception to the rule of star players struggling in the transition. apEX wasn't fancied as an in-game leader, but look at him now.

device has the brain for the game. He's 28 now, a true veteran with a decade long career. Re-install the culture and tactical identity that made Astralis great, and the individuals can come alive.

But make no mistake: Astralis are taking a gigantic risk, betting against history, harming the individual form of their franchise player, and putting even more eggs in the stavn and jabbi basket that has not provided any results so far.

Uncertainty lurks ahead. But, in the darkness, there is solace. Their jerseys will likely still be the most popular garment in the Royal Arena, even as Astralis watch from home. That brings pressure, but also a shield: Win, and the Astralis star can shine bright over Denmark again.