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Winners of the 2025 CS2 Roster Shuffles (by PEACEMAKER)

Articles
Jan 23
2K views 7 mins read

Every year after the CS2 Major Cycles and towards the end of the year, the Counter-Strike professional scene usually re-evaluates their projects, and many of them undergo roster changes in an attempt to elevate their performances ahead of the next year. While some of the movements do make a lot of sense and look like clear upgrades, others come with potential risks, and some teams end up losing their most valuable players and being unable to rebuild properly because of a lack of expertise or budget for that.

Today, my main goal is to go through what I believe to be the best roster moves we have had in 2025 so far, or at the very least the ones that make the most sense and we should keep an eye on. Keep in mind that every roster change often comes with a period of instability for a team; players are not plug-n-play. Some teams tend to have honeymoon periods after roster changes, others don’t and have difficult times, and that’s usually all part of the process. While the majority of organizations are patient and understand those processes, the majority of fans don’t, and with roster changes always come high expectations in terms of performance, especially when we are talking about the best teams in the world.

With that said, let’s start breaking down what should be the most impactful changes we have so far:

Team Liquid (-YEKINDAR +NertZ) and possibly -jks +siuhy?

Liquid decided to replace veteran star player YEKINDAR after a two-year stint with Israeli superstar NertZ, coming from the international roster of HEROIC. I would say that the move was sort of expected; it really does feel like YEKINDAR never found his A game in Team Liquid, or at the very least we rarely saw him having the impactful performances like in the golden days for Virtus.pro and Outsiders.

Team Liquid

With an average rating of 1.07 during his period at Team Liquid and a failed attempt to IGL, for me the move is more than justified and hopefully YEKINDAR finds his ground somewhere else. NertZ comes as a hot addition that promises to add firepower to the team, something that ever since TwistZ became the IGL his performance obviously dropped a little bit. They had a good start in the first couple of officials, and the move seems promising.

Team Liquid

Recently we got caught by a surprise move from MOUZ getting rid of their IGL (siuhy), and if I was Team Liquid I would waste no time considering him for the IGL role, letting TwistZ get back to some of his more comfortable roles and getting rid of jks, since he really hasn’t been consistent ever since he joined the team. That would certainly require some adaptations, siuhy to possibly play as anchor on some of the CT sides, but damn… this roster under siuhy’s guidance would certainly be a top contender.

Team Liquid

Virtus.pro (-jame -n0rb3r7 +FL4MUS +ICY)

The closure of a beautiful and successful chapter for VP under Jame’s guidance as an IGL—some may hate their overly methodical, slow-paced, unique style, but the Counter-Strike scene has to admit that Jame has certainly found a lot of success with it for a long period of time, with a Major victory in Brazil, always making it to Legends at the Majors, and multiple playoffs in the most important events during his six-year stint for Virtus.pro & Outsiders.

But lately, and with the transition to CS2, it felt like Jame and his team didn’t adapt well to the meta and how the game was being played. Even though he continued to bring great numbers as an AWPer, their results and roster changes didn’t find much success. More recently, adding veteran electroNic to the roster—who for many people should have been a massive addition—they didn’t come close to winning a single event, which, in my eyes, made it crystal clear that they needed a change of direction, something more loose and less methodical to see if the players would perform better.

Virtus.pro

Virtus.pro wasted no time during this roster shuffle and acquired two hot prospects in the scene, one rifler and one AWP: FL4MUS (20 years old) from GamerLegion and ICY (19 years old) from the disbanded Cloud9. With those roster moves, I think they added tons of firepower to their team, but more importantly, an energetic player in FL4MUS who can certainly help a lot with hyping them up when needed, and more importantly, they rejuvenated their project significantly—something that has been the business model many top organizations have followed these past few years and have found very successful, as an example, NAVI and the MOUZ projects.

I think that the biggest question is whether electroNic is going to be able to perform as well as he can while IGLing permanently for a young roster. But there’s no doubt that his job is going to be a lot easier, considering he has a lot of younger players who probably look up to and respect him a lot for everything he’s accomplished in the game. For now, I think the change is super exciting, and if electroNic is able to get the best out of the new players, and FL1T and fame continue to play as well as they are, they will be extremely scary by the end of 2025.

BetBoom (-nafany -KaiR0N +Boombl4 +Ax1Le)

BetBoom

After a long and successful period IGLing Gambit’s and Cloud9’s cores and certainly becoming a reference for their consistency and refined way of playing Counter-Strike from 2019 until 2023, nafany moved away from his friends and took a new challenge as the IGL of a newer generation of Russian players. A few of them were questioned in the community after being removed from their lineups, but when the first generation of this BetBoom team was created, the community expected that nafany would be able to do it all over again. And, well… some may say that lightning does not strike the same place twice, and in this case it was true. BetBoom’s results since 2023 have been very underwhelming, with only a 3rd/4th place at BetBoom Dacha 2023 and no Major appearances. The organization had enough and decided it was time for big changes in an attempt to do better in 2025.

And guess what? Another team that benefited from Cloud9’s disband is BetBoom, which acquired Boombl4 and Ax1Le, who decided to stick together, and kept s1ren, zorte, and their hottest prospect, Magnojez. Honestly speaking, people continue to sleep on all of Boombl4’s rosters through the years, and he continues to deliver over and over again. To be completely honest, the season has barely started and they already got two massive wins against MOUZ and FURIA, qualifying for BLAST Bounty playoffs—probably the org’s best result in the last 2 years?

BetBoom

I think the roles make a lot of sense, and if Boombl4 does what he does best, which is to mix up styles as an IGL and develop the young talents he has on his hands, this team is on for something a lot bigger in 2025. I still have my doubts that they will be able to beat the likes of Spirit, NAVI, and the best teams in the world consistently, but be sure to see them make the playoffs in some of the events throughout 2025.

BetBoom

FaZe and Vitality (-ropz -Spinx +EliGE +ropz)

To wrap up my list, of course I have to respectfully mention these two big names, Vitality and FaZe.

FaZe brought in Jonathan “⁠EliGE⁠” Jablonowski, which adds significant firepower to their lineup. While this move improves their fragging potential, it may create role and positional clashes. EliGE’s arrival requires FaZe to adapt their strategies, but if they manage to do so effectively, this roster could be one of the strongest in 2025. The potential is there; now it’s about making it work.

FaZe

Meanwhile, Vitality wasted no time and signed ropz, one of the smartest and most consistent players in CS2. His addition gives Vitality more tactical flexibility and firepower. 

Vitality

This move allows Vitality to diversify their strategies and reduce their dependence on Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut. It’s a clear upgrade and positions Vitality as one of the teams to watch in 2025.

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