Virtus.pro to acquire AVANGAR CSGO roster, reports indicate

Reports point towards legendary Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team Virtus.pro purchasing AVANGAR’s roster in its entirety.

Virtus.pro is in the latter stages of purchasing AVANGAR’s CSGO roster wholesale, according to a report from DBLTP’s Jarek “Dekay” Lewis. The AVANGAR organization currently fields an international team of players which includes a CSGO Major winner in Dauren “AdreN” Kystaubayev and the aggressive AWPer Dzhami “Jame” Ali.

AVANGAR has existed since 2017, but burst onto the international CSGO scene earlier this year when they defeated FaZe Clan in the New Legends stage of the 2019 IEM Katowice Major. In the following months, the roster made it to the grand finals of the StarLadder Berlin Major before losing to Astralis and took home first place at BLAST Pro Series Moscow.

Virtus.pro to sign AVANGAR to restart CSGO squad

Established in 2003, Virtus.pro cemented its Counter-Strike legacy across both Counter-Strike 1.6 and CSGO with legendary names like Wiktor “TaZ” Wojtas, Janusz “Snax” Pogorzelski, and Jarosław “pashaBiceps” Jarząbkowski. Major changes hit VP in 2018 as two of its long-standing members, TaZ and Snax, left VP for smaller and less successful teams. These changes followed a long series of subpar results for the group.

Paweł “byali” Bieliński eventually left in September 2018 and was moved on and off the VP roster before becoming a free agent. He joined the Polish squad Adwokacik in September. Filip “NEO” Kubski and PashaBiceps were the last to leave, doing so in February 2019. While NEO had a short stint with FaZe Clan, Pasha played a month-long trial with AGO Esports and ultimately failed to make the squad.

Since then, Snax has returned to a team once known as “Virtus.plow” due to their tendency to roll over opponents in matches. Virtus.pro hasn’t rolled over anyone in a long time, and those struggles stand as the clear reason behind the organization’s pursuit of the AVANGAR roster. VP’s recent list of accomplishments is made up entirely of fifth and sixth-place finishes in lower tier tournaments.

It is unclear whether the organization will attempt to retain its current players, particularly Snax, in a different capacity if VP acquires the AVANGAR roster. But the reports of the circumstances surrounding that event aren’t pretty. Snax, famous for his abilities in the game and an affinity for trash talk, might not like the idea of being replaced in such a way. 

If the reported buyout goes through, the AVANGAR roster is an immediate upgrade to VP’s current one. Despite his history, Snax isn’t the star player he once was and the current roster has achieved next to nothing. AVANGAR’s young squad has improved dramatically over the past eleven months, and they don’t show any sign of slowing down either.

It is unknown if VP will keep current head coach Jakub “kuben” Gurczyński, but it could be that kuben would be on the way out in favor of AVANGAR’s Dastan “dastan” Akbayev. If VP retains all current AVANGAR players in the process of the supposed transfer, their roster would be as follows:

• Timur “buster” Tulepov
• Alexey “qikert” Golubev
• Dzhami “Jame” Ali
• Sanjar “SANJI” Kuliev
• Dauren “AdreN” Kystaubayev