Keeping up with this player break is really, really tough. Our heads have been in a spin all week trying to piece together exactly what's going on, and now we've got there, we thought we might pass that knowledge on to you guys.
Some moves have already happened, but they're old news. Let's talk about stuff that might happen.
This is supposed to be the time off!
Winning the Major wasn't enough for Team Vitality.
dupreeh's return to the team brought with it a Major victory, but it turns out that that isn't enough. We heard that a lot of teams would be making changes, but we figured the team who won IEM Rio and then the Major might, you know, not be one of them.
What fools we were.
flameZ allegedly will be the replacement for dupreeh, whose departure doesn't seem to be related to a potential retirement as one might assume. dupreeh would almost certainly want to play at - and have a chance at winning - the Copenhagen Major in March, but it won't be on Vitality, if rumours are to be believed.
flameZ plays very similar roles on both sides of the map, making him a surprisingly explosive space-taker on the T side and a ridiculously reliable anchor on the defence.
While dupreeh's removal from the line-up might be a surprise, there's very few players who fit like a glove in that role like flameZ does.
If nothing else, it's intriguing.
NAVI are going a little bit crazy.
Once again, it's all rumours, but there's so much smoke one has to believe there's fire to be found.
npl, Perfecto and Electronic are all out, and NAVI have made it very clear that they won't be signing Russian players again, which left people wondering quite how they were going to find good Russian-speaking players outside of Russia good enough to compete.
The trick we were missing? They could just... speak English.
Even knowing that, we guarantee if you haven't already seen it, you won't guess the three players that will supposedly join b1t and s1mple. Seriously, three guesses.
Aleksib, jL and iM are reportedly the triple threat brought into Natus Vincere. Yeah.
jL and iM broke out at the Major, with iM looking like one of the best players in the world and jL being a key part of Apeks' shock run even if his personal form was up and down.
Aleksib is a known factor, admired for his calculated leadership style who might finally have the raw pieces he can manoeuvre into place and win some events.
It's... exciting. But baffling.
Erm...
With electronic and Perfecto out of NAVI, you'd imagine they'd have their pick of suitors.
The duo have been linked to Cloud9, replacing buster and HObbit, which at least makes sense. Some would have preferred it if HObbit stayed and nafany was benched, but others feel he's earnt his spot with sh1ro and Ax1le having played a big part in their rise.
The other move that's been rumoured has been electronic to Evil Geniuses.
The proposed Evil Geniuses roster, by the way, is like something dreamt up by the psychedelic-powered dreams of a CSGO subreddit user. zorte from FORZE, electronic, ELiGE with neaLaN and autimatic staying.
We'll get to ELiGE in a second.
The NA dream appears to be over, with electronic and zorte joining neaLaN in making Evil Geniuses a CIS roster should this go through. A completely insane sentence that might just come true.
Originally JACKZ was supposed to be part of it, and some outlets are suggesting zorte won't be joining now either - leaving EG in need of an AWPer.
Would that team work? How do the roles work? Would they finally be back to the top 20?
We have no idea; and that's why it's exciting.
Team Liquid are moving to a European roster too, apparently. With ELiGE reportedly switching to EG and nitr0 retiring, Team Liquid felt the talent in North America wasn't quite good enough to remain an American roster.
So the obvious move was to sign Patsi and Rainwaker and become European.
Patsi and YEKINDAR sounds like a terrifying entry duo, and Rainwaker is a remarkably composed closer who can benefit from the chaos caused by the aggro parts that Team Liquid have.
It's not been massively popular with the North American fans, as one might imagine, but Liquid felt they had no other choice.
Oh, and YEKINDAR is remaining in-game leader.
The Godfather of Brazilian Counter-Strike is back at the top, where he belongs, if reports are correct.
FalleN - and his partner in crime fer, supposedly - might be heading to FURIA to replace saffee and drop. FalleN seems almost certain, but fer seems more up in the air.
For now, kauez is meant to be replacing drop as high buyouts in Brazil have left them looking inwards for replacements.
FalleN was also wanted by paiN, but recent developments indicate FalleN has elected to join FURIA and bring them back to the top.
Finally on this list, we have the impressive w0nderful leaving Team Spirit (who are promoting three academy lads, hence Patsi's reported Liquid move too) and joining Sprout.
Sprout have lost launx to Falcons, but also want to replace XELLOW with w0nderful.
w0nderful is a passive AWPer who is superb in the late-round situations; a great clutcher and an even better player in the 3v3s. At least, he was on Spirit. He could be a much more explosive player on a different team, and only time will tell.
Regardless, it's an exciting move. w0nderful is still incredibly young and his potential is unmatched for the type of player Sprout can afford to sign, usually.
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