Community reacts: HooXi replaces cadiaN

23-4-2025 20:41

Former teammates and various members of the community came forward in support of Astralis' latest move.

After Astralis announced the benching of Casper "⁠cadiaN⁠" Møller, the dismissal of Sports Director Kasper Straube, and the addition of Rasmus "⁠HooXi⁠" Nielsen as a stand-in for the rest of the season on Tuesday, the community came out in droves to react to the news.

Most focused on the positives and the addition of HooXi, who will make his return to competition for the first time since he was benched by G2 in June 2024.

The consensus seems to be that HooXi will be a better fit for Astralis, especially when considering cadiaN's struggles transitioning from AWPing to rifling and failing to make a case for it being a firepower improvement over HooXi slotting into the same role.

"The cadiaN move should never have happened," Janko "⁠YNk⁠" Paunović said. "HooXi was a much better fit, too bad he wasn't a Heroic member before. Kasper Straube being fired is the best news Astralis fans got in a long time," he jabbed at the now-dismissed Astralis Sports Director, who brought three former teammates over after coming on board from HEROIC in 2023.

Astralis Sports Director on dismissal: "It's part of the game"

"My hot take when cadiaN joined was that in under a year he would be fired or device would retire," Duncan "⁠Thorin⁠" Shields pitched in.

Most talent and former pros agree the move for HooXi could be a step in the right direction, albeit a tentative one.

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... except for one, of course.

Questions still remain over whether HooXi can get more out of the star trio of Martin "⁠stavn⁠" Lund, Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz and Jakob "⁠jabbi⁠" Nygaard, whose struggle for consistency has been a target of criticism of late.

"HooXi will be an improvement on cadiaN with a rifle/SMG for sure, but let's see if he can get the structure and system in place to make all the pieces perform," James "⁠BanKs⁠" Banks opined.

Former teammates of HooXi lined up to wish him good luck, chief among them Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač, who played alongside the Dane in his last tournament under G2 at BLAST Premier Spring Final nearly a year ago.

The Copenhagen Flames of old also gave their words of support to their former in-game leader for his new endeavour.

wow, usually I would say "good for him", but I would have preferred he joined any other team than Astralis.

2025-04-23 20:47

260

16 replies

Same but didnt have other choise i guess

5 replies

I really hope he got his mentals right while not playing. That was the main thing that hindered him in G2 :(

2025-04-23 20:49

4 replies

Surely Astralis management is better than G2’s

2025-04-23 22:26

3 replies

oh boy...

2025-04-23 23:39

1 reply

HAHAHA ‘‘twas sarcasm

2025-04-24 01:41

even FaZe did better than gg

2025-04-24 03:19

well as long as he mb finds success

2025-04-23 20:54

Kassad's take is not wholesome lol

2025-04-23 21:15

is he ever wholesome?

2025-04-23 21:16

2 replies

Kassad and Thorin is such fucking losers. Dunno why they get any talking time at all.

2025-04-23 22:37

*are

2025-04-23 23:32

Yeah he's definitely overdoing the negativity and it's just going into bullying.

2025-04-23 23:18

I am still kind of glad that community is so positive towards this, Hooxi got truckloads of bad comments from everyone when he was in G2. This may be the first time in a long, long time that community is kind of positive towards Astralis project.

2025-04-23 23:17

That's what time does. Whatever small gripes people had with Hooxi went away and now they only remember the positives. Going to Astralis is actually great for him too because if he can turn it around, he'll gain so much more respect. It'll be a crazy shift from before when it seemed like he was public enemy #1 in 2023

2025-04-24 00:10

A place in a G2 team is like a poison chalice; there was so much scrutiny on how one should perform and deliver on and off-server.

2025-04-24 06:57

just say good for them then

2025-04-24 08:22

THE GOAT

2025-04-23 20:42

where hltv forum experts?

2025-04-23 20:43

9 replies

fr my comment in the hooxi thread got 800 updoots i deserve some recognition!!

2025-04-23 20:44

7 replies

any hltv comment should be mentionedway above than Bank's tweet.

Congrats on a life achievement buddy

my life achievement is having the most liked comment on hltv breaking 2000 likes but my hooxi comment is probably in my top 5 achievements

2025-04-23 20:48

I'm happy that you're progressing

2025-04-23 20:50

im known for being very progressive :3

2025-04-23 20:51

Ah i didnt know you worked at progressive, no wonder my car got here so fast!

2025-04-23 21:03

just gotta put those haterblockers on😎

2025-04-23 21:47

they put in kassad's tweet :D

2025-04-23 21:50

No cadiaN no party

I speak for EVERYONE when I say this move was GREAT for both astralis and cadian himself

If cadian can get a different team, I hope so he is a player unlike a lot

2025-04-23 23:06

maybe tier 3

2025-04-24 10:41

THE GOAT IS BACK

Hooxi should not have fallen to the dark side. Any team but astralis

Bootystralis still not gonna win anything unfortunately

2025-04-23 20:45

10 replies

hltv.org/matches/2381765/faze-vs-gamerle..

2025-04-23 20:46

faze as a dead team made it to major grand final astralis as a dead team bombed out of 4 rmrs and 1 mrq to ukrainian gamba org sorry.... youre not sigma...

8 replies

bombing out of mrq > crying on stage

2025-04-23 20:57

crying on stage > not being on stage

6 replies

imagine prefering exposing your weaknesses to 15 thousand people rather than do it in the backalley

2025-04-23 20:59

#27

2025-04-23 21:00

I would also cry if I were beaten by a gigafraud

surprisingly cry is expensive in this economy

2025-04-23 21:01

in yours for sure that's why you're writing bullshit like this

yup, anotha #FINNEGANCLASSIC!

2025-04-23 21:04

I love you hooxi

Goat capitán shit boat gl hooxi

Bringing in a guy who is overly critical of himself into a team that has absolutely no confidence. This could go bad quick. Happy for hooxi getting another chance and paycheck though

noonecar

Niko , legend of the game, reacts lets go dude!!! Legends of the game offer their reactions! Lvl 8 hltv user: noonecar "hahaha" nice meme...

2025-04-24 10:14

Ence + cadian??

2025-04-23 20:56

GIGACHAD will make astralis great again

Swapping CadiaN for Hooxi is like jumping over your neighbor's wall. Same shit but with a different name... BOTStralis FOREVER

2025-04-23 20:58

Rasmus Redemption Arc, WE WILL BE THERE

pog, champ

“Oh god”

' except for one, of course.' Oh dear Kassad..... Can he be even a little bit more optimistic on this? This is literally the last straw that can save Astralis from a complete failure in 2025. Otherwise, I couldn't see anymore future for not turning into international squad

2025-04-23 21:20

Is everyone forgetting that when HooXi was kicked from G2 he averaged a 0.5 rating and now hasn’t played for 9 months and is joining arguably a worse lineup? This could be just as bad as cadiaN.

2025-04-23 21:23

yes, but most likely the players were fed up with cadiaN IGL-ing and just wanted to try something "fresh", regardless of how bad hooxi was at his latter period in G2. they've literally hit rock bottom, why not try it

if you watched those games, you would see that staehr and stavn loved cadian until the end, so this is most likely a Device classic, kicking IGL´s because he want them to play different.

2025-04-23 22:15

wouldnt surprise me

2025-04-23 22:16

He did bring cph flames to the major two times, which was also a danish team, and with arguably worse individuals than G2. Going back to his mother tongue and being able to (hopefully) bring his system and leadership into astralis could work out great, we'll have to see Also in 2024 he had a 0.87 avg on G2, which isn't great but isn't as bad as a gross exageration of 0.5

2025-04-23 22:00

I just went by his last 10 or so games before getting kicked

2025-04-23 23:03

His last 10 games on G2 were 8 games in esl pro league season 19 where he averaged a 0.86 rating and after that 2 games in blast premier spring finals, one of those games being played with Taz, where he averaged 0.57. Thus in his last 10 games on G2 (which also correspond to his last 2 events on G2) he averaged a 0.71 rating

2025-04-24 00:49

Yeah the game when TaZ played better than he did lol Okay 0.7 instead of 0.5… big deal

2025-04-24 13:28

Yeah 0.2 is a big deal, for example in that taz match it's almost the rating difference between hooxi and niko on dust2 (0.71 and 0.53 respectively) (taz got a little bit of a better rating than niko on that map too) It's interesting to note that nexa was also there supporting taz and hooxi from the bottom of the scoreboard on anubis. I wonder if the fact that Hooxi had to adapt his calling playing with two bots instead of only nexa as usual could've possibly had any impact on his in-game performance... maybe that's already a thought a little too nuanced for you

2025-04-24 14:09

Hooxi did take "nonamers" to qualify for two majors. Better than what anyone have done for Astralis since glaive. (Not saying glaive is the solution because he clearly is not) but hooxi knows how to use his talents much better. Also not to mention jabbi already knows how to play with hooxi. They have a good chance if Stavn actually turns his screen on or they replace him with a guy like teses or someone else in that kind of role

2025-04-23 23:50

tbh Astralis will play vs some shit teams in tournaments G2 didnt play. So his K/D might be better in Ast

2025-04-24 04:54

-45 adr +25 adr

2025-04-23 21:27

please, remove stavn

2025-04-23 21:28

+1 such a fraud. never shows up in big games/stage matches

2025-04-23 21:51

Excited.

2025-04-23 21:45

I like how everyone is generally happy and wishing good luck to Hooxi and then there is Kassad with his negativity

2025-04-23 21:58

Huxi is back

2025-04-23 22:20

We believe in our goat

2025-04-23 22:30

device 1.6 rating ervery game from now on, bookmark this

2025-04-23 22:38

i hate to admin it but cadian did fail, both with calls (was obvious; such as, rush a) and individually. hooxi however is no solution. the slump will continue. you cant have stavn going hot, and jabbi going cold interchangeably. both must be online same time.

2025-04-23 22:44

GigaChad

2025-04-23 22:45

Imagine signing 322 washed up radar player to a tier1 team

2025-04-23 22:57

People seem to be responding like he's been signed permanently to the roster but he's just a stand in, am I missing something?

Hooxi seems more accomplished as igl but he hasn't played for like a year. Career gap like this can wash people like s1mple. I don't see hooxi go far with Astralis

2025-04-24 03:44

What else could Astralis do? They’re close to being bankrupt and really needed an IGL change. Kind of excited to see how this pans out for them

2025-04-24 04:10

-ruggah +xyp9x and I will believe again

2025-04-24 04:43

I think Astralis would make it to major with HooX tbh

2025-04-24 04:53

Bro has been grinding faceit so much recently, with great performances, can't wait to watch him in action. Reaching apEX level in terms of stats would help Astralis a lot.

2025-04-24 08:18

I hope cadian doesnt play again because since that interview where someone else from his team spoke and he interfered with smtn like "when ur on my team im the one giving fking interviews", never liked him again

2025-04-24 09:59

Guess whos back.... back again... The Chad is back tell a friend

2025-04-24 11:09

no way he does worse than cadian which is already a low bar

2025-04-24 11:21

Who is Hooxi? For the blind, He is HooxSee. For the hungry, He is Foodxi. For the thirsty, He is H20xi. If Hooxi thinks, I agree. If Hooxi speaks, I’m listening. If Hooxi has one fan, it is me. If Hooxi has no fans, I don’t exist

2025-04-24 12:48

Hooxi reunites with Jabbi, a familiar face from their successful stint in Copenhagen Flames. The synergy between the two is already established—mutual understanding of playstyles and fluid communication should translate well into their new environment. Staehr slots in as a solid, role-oriented piece. He’s shown he can play within a system, and with a clear role under a structured IGL like Hooxi, there’s little risk of internal friction. A stable, reliable contributor. Device, who previously struggled with motivation and mental health, appears to be in a much better place. With Hooxi stepping in—a calm, structured leader—there’s a chance this revitalized version of Device could finally rediscover his old form. This could be the spark he’s been searching for. Stavn, despite brief overlap with cadiaN at Astralis, has yet to fully hit his stride post-Heroic. However, he thrives in a pack mentality. With both Hooxi and Staehr willing to play sacrificial roles, stavn is set up for success—an open runway to stardom. All in all, this star-studded roster stands to gain immensely from a selfless, tactically sharp IGL. Hooxi’s calling was strong in G2, but now, leading in his native language, he can bring even more to the table. At this level, every edge matters.

2025-04-24 16:56