JACKZ leaves NIP after wildcard eligibility expires

25-2-2025 13:41

NIP sit at number 158 on the Valve Rankings after a difficult start to 2025.

NIP were using JACKZ to accept wildcard invites to CCT's closed qualifiers

Audric "⁠JACKZ⁠" Jug will no longer stand in for Ninjas in Pyjamas after the team's eligibility for wildcard invites expired.

Via JACKZ's one tournament for Vitality, the Ninjas could accept wildcard invites based on having a core of three players — Marco "⁠Snappi⁠" Pfeiffer with Falcons, Rasmus "⁠sjuush⁠" Beck with HEROIC, and JACKZ with Vitality — who were in the top eight of Valve's Global Standings over the last twelve months.

Snappi was last in the top eight on March 3, 2024, but recent rule changes that turned the period of time players must be in the top eight from 12 to 6 months mean NIP were already illegible for invites as of February 25.

NIP give insight on roster overhaul in new video

JACKZ played five CCT closed qualifiers with Ninjas in Pyjamas but the team failed to progress in any of the tournaments he stood in for Rafael "⁠arrozdoce⁠" Wing and had a losing record (6-8) in matches.

"I'm disappointed not to have achieved a better result with the guys," JACKZ said on X. "The reality is that with zero practice together, it’s hard to truly adapt to a system and be in sync in all phases of the game."

Teams write open letter to Valve about "significant flaws" in new ecosystem

Ninjas in Pyjamas sit at number 158 on the Valve Global Standings, far from the rankings that would give them regular invites to tournaments.

The organization were one of 22 teams that signed an open letter criticizing Valve's approach to the 2025 ecosystem earlier this month, pointing to a scene that they believe is overly reliant on invitations directly from the ranking.

Notoriously difficult online qualifiers are now the only Counter-Strike available to NIP, as they look to climb the ranking and validate their decision to start 2025 with a new, unranked, core.

Next up for the team is the PGL Bucharest closed qualifier, a berth they secured by winning the first open qualifier.

Ninjas in Pyjamas' roster is:

Marco "⁠Snappi⁠" Pfeiffer
Rasmus "⁠sjuush⁠" Beck
Artem "⁠r1nkle⁠" Moroz
Michel "⁠ewjerkz⁠" Pinto
Rafael "⁠arrozdoce⁠" Wing

Richard "⁠Xizt⁠" Landström (coach)

Gareth "⁠MisteM⁠" Ries (benched)
Kristian "⁠k0nfig⁠" Wienecke (benched)

Heh, Again...

2025-02-25 13:41

1 reply

finally

2025-02-25 13:42

K0nv1ct lol

Rip sjuush

poor guy :(

2025-02-26 10:37

Really doesn't show how positive Jackz can be for a roster. He's still very relevant. NiP's failure isn't linked to him at all imho

2025-02-25 13:43

152

8 replies

Time on Nip doesn't count

2025-02-25 14:18

119

Depends on how you describe relevant. Relevant for tier 2-3 scene sure why not, but he did already overstay his welcome at tier 1 and has no relevancy there thats for sure.

2025-02-25 14:26

2 replies

yeah i agree. Relevant for teams up to #30 ranking in international. even for 3dmax I think he would've been a better addition than bodyy.

2025-02-25 14:34

Ok that last bit is outrageous

2025-02-25 16:44

Better for JACKZ to leave NiP. NiP is a player graveyard

2025-02-25 16:17

Like all ex-NIP members, Jackz is going to dominate in his next project

2025-02-25 16:59

why didnt he dominate before nip then?

2025-02-26 00:40

because thats not how it works, you only dominate after your NIP stint

2025-02-26 06:49

It just seems NIP is cursed at this point. These players just based on experience should be able to at least get into fucking CCT, like cmon.

5 replies

Let's see Washed up pro as a cheerleader coach Fraud igl exposed the moment sAw stopped carrying him 2 snap tap abusers Inconsistent ukrainian awper that couldn't get to navi even with how bad w0nderful has been playing On his best day 9th best Danish player at the moment (there's a reason he didn't go to falcons or astralis) Yeah, no, these results make sense

2025-02-25 14:15

4 replies

Since you deliberately put the worst optics on all of them, let me allow to do the same from the other side Coach that coached a top 3 team, major finalist Igl of a top 3 team, winner of big event lan One of the most promising snipers a year ago One of the best anchors of 2024 Young pt talent Experienced major finalist Obviously none of us is correct, but I stand by my point that this should be good enough for CCT given the level of teams they were losing to

2025-02-25 15:04

Coach that didn't manage to replicate the success because it was cadiaNs system he bought into Igl of a top 3 team that couldn't achieve anything before or after playing with sAw a year ago is the keyword here, a year ago we played csgo Snaptap came out in 2024 Major finalist past his prime that yet again got carried by cadians system just like the coach did I used the points of their careers at which nip built a roster with them not the fairytales about them from years ago

2025-02-25 15:29

Exactly, well said bro

2025-02-25 16:11

Don't forget Rez somehow finding a new youth after so many Rosters and instability...

2025-02-25 16:16

sad that k0nfig's still benched.

7 replies

He has more time to go clubbing on the bench.

2025-02-25 13:50

Or getting clubbed by another bouncer

2025-02-25 15:02

hes terrible

2025-02-25 15:43

does he get paid on the bench though?

2025-02-25 23:53

3 replies

Usually it’s a massive reduction in wages like upwards of 75% less pay but it’s dependent on contracts/orgs/etc

2025-02-26 00:41

and it's not even like the money's free as he'll still have to pracc religiously to even think about getting picked up by another org/having his contract renewed

2025-02-26 19:17

Oh of course! In fact you’re probably almost grinding the game even more due to wanting to get picked up elsewhere

2025-02-27 00:41

LoL

2025-02-25 13:44

Please no more stand-ins from now on

2025-02-25 13:46

NIP in RIP

2025-02-25 13:47

Why they didnt practice at least some maps with him, literally says ZERO practice. WTF

2025-02-25 13:48

6 replies

They were practicing with arrozdoce instead.

2025-02-25 13:54

Sounds odd indeed, how hard can it be?

2025-02-25 13:55

Jackz probably has little time since he's playing for Genone

For all I know, he's not contracted or anything. If NIP deemed usefull to even try integrating him, he would have been much more available. We see it wasn't the case so, yeah, you get what you pay for...

2025-02-25 16:27

Because they thought that they just needed to play 10 matches and be done with him. They thought that even without practice together with him they'd be able to do well enough to get a rank that nets them invites to CCT, which isn't that hard since CCT invites go into the 50s of the world ranking usually. Given this assumption it made more sense for them to practice with arrozoce(who they were playing open qualifiers with) and just have Jackz sub in for the few officials they needed with him

2025-02-25 14:21

Jackz is practicing with his own team as well. No time for that

2025-02-25 14:23

NIP will just pick up all the dregs of players who will be kicked off top 20 teams for better players. Then they'll have another core that'll be shit, and continue the cycle.

2025-02-25 13:52

What a shitshow this is…Valve get your system in order!!

Nip get your lineup in order or just quit cs

2025-02-25 14:29

2025-02-25 15:57

you should be glad REZ made it out and got to save the latter half of his career

2025-02-25 16:03

He’s kinda like Mbappé. Should’ve left NiP/PSG years ago

2025-02-25 17:33

Remember “No one is afraid of making superstar signings from a financial point of view, but it has to be at the right time”. The right time was last rotation, wake up or be honest. Guess this is another year of no expectations.

What kind of contract did Konfig sign?

2025-02-25 13:56

20k$ per month until 2030

Seems pretty good :)

2025-02-25 15:13

lmao, konfig is the one who read the fine print and won this time

2025-02-25 15:48

so they now dont have a valve ranking anymore?

2025-02-25 13:58

hoping to see him back at tier 1 soon

2025-02-25 14:00

jackz my goat someone pick him up plz <33333333

2025-02-25 14:01

will be in the new french team jackz, nbk, hadji, nivera, misutaaa

gotta have djoko somewhere in there

2025-02-25 16:01

goodbye bot

2025-02-25 14:03

Main matchfixer in CS

2025-02-25 14:07

any team (except nip) - any player + jackz instant top 1

yeah we saw him alot on the scene before he joined nip WOW.

2025-02-26 00:45

sometimes i ask myself if gtr and f0rest are watching this actual nip situation...

Idk, but even Dignitas, literally 4 grandpas + hallzerk, were doing better than whatever the fuck is NiP doing now.

2025-02-25 14:32

completely agree fr

2025-02-25 15:03

f0rest has actually watched some of their games on stream oh well, he seems to be having fun with it...

2025-02-25 16:00

Of course, he is millionaire after NIP fiesta on CCT-Tournament :D :D :D

2025-02-25 14:28

we have to be on top by 2025

They might be as this team is somewhat promising. Give it time. Worth the risk to put these players together even if the Valve ranking isn't there yet.

2025-02-26 07:08

Not even invited to CCT anymore LMFAO

2025-02-25 14:38

Must be hard to be a NIP fan

2025-02-25 15:06

Sad man, from what I've watched of them so far they seem like they would be a fun team to see at tournaments.

2025-02-25 15:17

what a shit org....

Shit Coach and Manager as well both had how many Players and nothing worked at all.

Xizt is a good coach tho. This org is simply cursed, this roster on paper is pretty decent, at very least better than whatever they did last year, but it's actually WORSE somehow. Knowing NiP shady history, I'm sure something fishy is going on with them.

2025-02-25 17:45

Again.. they should have just kept their team and changed out Maxster and maybe Isak or Mistem. Would have kept getting invites and would have had better results than this

2025-02-25 15:42

#158 GODS of roster management imagine what a good org would have done with the old legends

2025-02-25 15:47

nip need to come out and just say they are burnt out. that will stop people from criticizing them for a few months at least

2025-02-26 06:46

The reality is that at some point, you just have to be able to find the wins to get through those qualifiers. Plenty of other teams have gotten through open quals, placed well in tier 2 events and even secured spots at tier 1 LANs since the start of the year.

2025-02-25 15:59

AKA NIP tricked jackz for points

K0nfig still stealing paychecks lol

2025-02-25 16:37

@NER0cs Typo in article: "from 12 to 6 months mean NIP were already illegible (should be ineligible) for invites as of February 25"

2025-02-25 17:06

thank you JACKZ for standing in <3

2025-02-25 17:07

NiP is just a cheap soap opera with mexican actors, directed by a brazilian and produced by koreans.

2025-02-25 17:11

I'll never understand the cult following behind JACKZ. Dude is obviously washed and I dont see a top 30 team picking him up. Yeah yeah I know, "aura" and vibes

2025-02-25 17:16

because he played well against greyhounds when he stood in for vitality the first time. i think the end score was 16-4 but if jackz wasnt playing it would have been 16-5 JACKZ goated

2025-02-25 23:59

"158 on the VRS" "N1 by the start of 2025"

free k0nfig

2025-02-25 17:32

Should have been a shit swedish Core instead of a shit international core

2025-02-25 17:35

At this point, idk who are having a hard time: NiP or coL fans.

2025-02-25 17:42

Config still chilling on bench for how many? 2 years or so?

2025-02-25 17:44

NIP LEGENDARY ORGANIZATION,so sad

2025-02-25 17:51

The fact I still see k0nfig on the bench 🥹

2025-02-25 18:44

I guess NIP should have closed the CS area with the good byes of forest and get right. Its hard to See such a historical Clan of counter strike history dying every year.

2025-02-25 18:50