Can the new Astralis roster dominate the offline era?
The new Astralis roster is certainly turning heads, but when will it start winning championships?
Astralis has officially confirmed its lineup for the 2022 Counter-Strike: Global Offensive season. The storied organization has gone through more than a dozen roster changes since travel restrictions shut down CSGO majors in 2020.
A disappointing Legends stage exit at PGL Stockholm Major was the nail in the coffin for the old Astralis era. The team has brought in two big names from Complexity, but will that be enough to win a fifth major?
New Astralis roster for 2022
With the addition of the two Complexity players, the new Astralis roster is as follows:
- Andreas “Xyp9x” Højsleth
- Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander
- Philip “Lucky” Ewald
- Kristian “k0nfig” Wienecke
- Benjamin “blameF” Bremer
- Alexander “ave” Holdt (Coach)
Astralis confirmed that this will be the 2022 starting roster through social media. Lucas “Bubzkji” Andersen was notably absent from promotional material, and Astralis is openly taking offers for his contract.
New AWPer Lucky has played fairly well since his unexpected signing. He contributed several key rounds in Stockholm, though it wasn’t enough to prevent a new Astralis roster from forming.
blameF and k0nfig are the newest additions to the team. The pair previously played for Complexity, where they provided the bulk of the squad’s fragging power. Both players’ statistics look very good despite not playing for the last quarter of the season.
blameF has put up 82.5 damage and .72 kill per round over the past 12 months, both solidly above-average. Versatile rifler k0nfig boasts a 1.10 KD ratio with 60.1% headshots. It’s worth noting that they achieved such stats on Complexity, which, to put it mildly, didn’t do very well in 2021.
Xyp9x and gla1ve need no introduction. The Clutch Minister actually decided to leave Astralis at the end of 2021, only reconsidering once the team qualified for the Stockholm Major. Xyp9x has since extended his contract by another two years. In-game leader gla1ve is the beating heart of Astralis. The pair are the only members of the quadruple major-winning Astralis lineup of the late 2010s.
Is the new Astralis team strong?
It’s difficult to say if the new Astralis roster can measure up to the squad’s glory days. Xyp9x and gla1ve are two very important ingredients, but they alone are not enough to win majors.
Lucky is a young rookie, so any rough patches can be labeled as growing pains. k0nfig and blameF have no such excuse. Both of them have played at a high level for several years now with some fairly impressive results. Both players’ biggest payday was at BLAST Premier: Spring 2020 European Finals, where Complexity earned a $335,000 championship.
Astralis will enter the 2022 season right on the edge of the top tier. There are plenty of strong teams it could beat and many weak teams it could lose to. The addition of new talent does bode well, but it probably won’t be enough to win more majors. While not expected to debut as a podium contender, a couple of solid results could turn the new Astralis roster into a staple of tier one CSGO within a couple of months.
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