kaze named Rare Atom player-coach

24-10-2025 19:15

The Malaysian sniper will fill a rarely seen role in Counter-Strike.

Rare Atom have announced that veteran sniper Andrew "⁠kaze⁠" Khong has moved to a player-coach role.

"After communication and friendly consultation between the club and the player himself, Andrew Khong [kaze] will join the coaching staff and transition to the role of playing coach," the organization said.

"We hope that kaze can adapt to his new identity as soon as possible, and use his rich experience in competitions to sharpen the team's edge and achieve better results."

The organization did not disclose what exactly kaze's playing coach role means, or what the move entails for current coach Zhenghui "⁠z8z⁠" Liu.

The move comes after an unsettled few months for the Chinese organization. Rare Atom benched HaoWen "⁠somebody⁠" Xu in favor of the inexperienced Aojie "⁠Trash⁠" Tian, but the 21-year-old lasted only two events before being removed from the active roster.

His replacement, Junbing "⁠Tiger⁠" Zhen, fared much better and averaged a 1.11 rating across his tenure in the team, helping Rare Atom secure two ESL Challenger League Season 50 Asia-Pacific Cup victories.

kaze's last appearance for Rare Atom came in September, with the Chinese squad playing with assistant coach Tzu-Chi "⁠Marek⁠" Huang in the meantime.

Rare Atom now have one month to prepare for the Starladder Budapest Major Stage 1, where they will represent Asia alongside The Huns, Lynn Vision, and FlyQuest.

Rare Atom are now:

YuLun "⁠Summer⁠" Cai
Junhao "⁠ChildKing⁠" Peng
Yihang "⁠L1haNg⁠" Li
Junbing "⁠Tiger⁠" Zhen
Andrew "⁠kaze⁠" Khong (player-coach)

Zhenghui "⁠z8z⁠" Liu (coach)

Karrigan take notes

2025-10-24 19:16

219

3 replies

he's been doing that for years now. they just never made it official

2025-10-24 19:46

faze coaches have always been mickey mouz in Stalingan's team

2025-10-24 23:36

ne0 is still interim after all these years

2025-10-25 12:31

ah yes, the dedicated negev awp igl

what?

2025-10-24 19:17

5 replies

yeah fr like what makes him the coach if hes playing? i mean maybe hes gonna be creating their tactics and stuff but doesnt that make him more of an igl?

2025-10-24 19:25

im guessing they mean igl and somehow messed up the translation

2025-10-24 20:12

And why do their waste that coach spot

2025-10-24 21:32

i think he will be creating basic tactics and stuff to free the mind off of Childking because he is also an insane rifling IGL, and then he will take care of the midround calls it's just a guess but it would make sense either that or opposite, or else i think they would just have said that he's taking over IGL role unless there's something deeper to this (his sudden disappearence and Marek getting sticker)

2025-11-06 19:32

rare rare atom player coach role

2025-10-24 20:45

what do you mean XD

bro will leave his chair as soon as the timeout is called and start to walk around and talk and then get back in his chair and play

2025-10-24 23:43

2 replies

That’s funny, and kind of what I pictured lol

2025-10-25 01:58

wahahahaahaha

2025-10-25 06:08

what is this

dont car, more Kaze is all that matters.

2025-10-24 19:19

'rarely seen role' yeah I dont remember seeing anything like that even once from 10 years of following pro cs

I guess maybe blad3 was more of a coach than a player the way he fragged in flipsid3

2025-10-24 19:27

1 reply

im gonna drop some flipside blade stats before they get me outta here!!

2025-10-24 20:46

So like an igl.

found my first 0-3 pick thanks

8 replies

hahahaha

2025-10-24 19:22

2nd is fluxo

2025-10-24 19:38

asia never goes 0-3

2025-10-24 20:40

Superstition

2025-10-24 21:29

NEVER PUT AN ASIAN TEAM 0-3

2025-10-24 21:27

not even Gold for you in this case

2025-10-24 21:40

2025-10-25 00:55

2025-10-25 01:02

bullshit

2025-10-24 19:20

sorry bit lazy what's a player-coach ?

2025-10-24 19:21

#44

2025-10-25 01:10

what the hell xdd

2025-10-25 04:42

who gets the sticker though? him or marek?

marek

2025-10-24 21:30

So he will give up of being awper, take over all trash roles, and will be waiting till they find out some replacement.

isnt this just igl or what lol

2025-10-24 19:24

So an IGL...?

4 replies

they don't want to call it like that... a coach is more than an IGL. An IGL is being a coach but not more than being an IGL in calling but mental support as in being a coach. He is a player coach, meaning he plays and coaches but doesn't make calls like an IGL, and in Malaysian culture, they can't call it an IGL because in-game leader is not a valid word.

2025-10-24 20:00

fym malaysian culture??

2025-10-24 20:49

he is from mayonaisia

2025-10-24 20:54

i'm guessing Childking will be keeping IGL duties with midround calling, while kaze preps more of the basic strategies and free off Childking's duties more

2025-11-06 19:22

So basically he is just doing shadowing with the coach to learn how its done so he can transition to that position more smoothly later or what

That's called an igl

2025-10-24 19:28

does it mean that he cannot talk to players in live rounds?

Well from Chinese scene it looks like a very disrespectful move. Just before the invitation of budapest major,Chinese fans found that kaze was out of the roster for no reason. The guy who replace him, marek, is an assistant coach which has a bad reputation for potential matchfix history. He played for 5 matches and get a sticker from it.Then I guess RA has no excuses for kaze disappearing and coming back at such a critical moment, so they played a trick of a meaningless move.

2025-10-24 19:29

asian cs mafia classicccc

2025-10-24 20:48

I thought Tiger was supposed to take over Kaze's role, they're both awpers right? I dont understand what this team is doing

2025-10-25 05:36

Don’t treat this team as tyloo or lvg. Even RA itself is connected with matchfix story popular in China.

2025-10-25 20:49

Final boss of matchfixing

2025-10-24 20:03

RA really did kaze dirty to give a matchfixer sticker

2025-10-24 20:18

rofl

2025-10-24 20:51

last time I heard about a coach wants to get a sticker was peacekeeper's time in TYLOO. really a L move if RA give marek, the guy played T6 in entire career and probably matchfixed a free sticker with benching a veteran sniper for no reason

2025-10-24 21:16

there has never been such a thing as a playing coach in traditional CS pro scene. RA literally invented this term just because they don’t want to explain why kaze hasn’t been playing with the team recently, and at the same time they don’t want to bench him either. this team is an absolute joke

It's over unc

2025-10-24 23:44

WTF????

2025-10-25 00:15

2025-10-25 02:25

only for genius?

2025-10-25 03:03

996 DELUXE, Classic China.

2025-10-25 03:07

My Malaysian Goat

2025-10-25 05:10

respect for kaze

2025-10-25 05:31

Amateur cs be like

2025-10-25 12:14

HaHa, dirty team, smbd cheated in 2024 shanghai just for stickers. Now ra can get stickers because of the vrs system----they have no need to cheat to win the rmr. Now they want let kaze get out and make their coach get stickers. HAHAHA, WHEN RA GO TO HELL?

2025-10-25 12:24

RA cheater team. cheat danking, slowly and tyloo out of the major, and now they cheat kaze of his sticker and let marek, the old retired cheater get what he didn't deserve. FUCK this team,

2025-10-25 13:38