Astralis Sign siuhy and cmtry, End All-Danish CS2 Era
Astralis is no longer a Danish team.
That's the headline, really. The club that defined an era of Counter-Strike with a homegrown core has signed Kamil "siuhy" Szkaradek and Nikita "cmtry" Samolotov. The move completes its first truly international Counter-Strike 2 lineup. Dust2.us and HLTV reported the signings on October 13, and they close a short, busy stretch for the organisation.
Filling the gaps
The two arrivals didn't come out of nowhere. On October 9, Astralis benched Rasmus "HooXi" Nielsen and Jakob "jabbi" Nygaard, which left two holes in the active five. Four days later, both of them were filled.
Siuhy is the bigger name of the pair. He arrives from Team Liquid, where he was the in-game leader, and HLTV says he became a free agent earlier in October. Here's the interesting part, though: the Astralis announcement confirms the signing but says nothing about whether he'll call the shots in his new home. Bringing in a proven leader and then not saying he'll lead is either a placeholder or a deliberate choice. For now, nobody outside the team knows which.
Cmtry is a different kind of signing. He has spent time with NAVI Junior and FUT, mostly as an AWPer, but he's expected to move onto a rifle at Astralis. That's not a small adjustment for any player, let alone one stepping into a team with this much history.
Filip "NEO" Kubski stays on as coach. With both signings done, Astralis is back to five active players.
A roster without a national core
Here's how the new lineup looks:
- Victor "Staehr" Staehr
- Love "phzy" Smidebrant
- Gytis "ryu" Glušauskas
- Kamil "siuhy" Szkaradek
- Nikita "cmtry" Samolotov
- Coach: Filip "NEO" Kubski
Staehr is now the only Dane in the starting five. For a club that won four Majors with an all-Danish roster, that's a striking shift. Astralis isn't trying to rebuild the old national identity with new faces. It's starting a different chapter altogether, and the October changes were clearly the setup for it.
The Major spot and the sticker deadline
The good news for the new squad is that the hardest part is already done. The previous lineup qualified Astralis for the PGL Singapore Major by winning Stake Ranked Episode 4, beating Nemiga in the final. That spot carries over.
There's a catch for the newcomers, though. According to Dust2.us, siuhy and cmtry need to play five matches before the Major invite cutoff if they want in-game stickers. Stickers are the player and team items sold inside Counter-Strike around each Major, so they matter to both pride and wallets. Stake Pulse Beat III and Stake Ranked Episode 5 are the events that give them a chance to reach that number.
The clock started fast. Astralis' first scheduled match with the new roster was against Sashi on October 14, opening Group C at Stake Pulse Beat III.
Our Take
This roster change could mark the end of a long-running brand identity. For years, "Astralis" and "Danish Counter-Strike" meant more or less the same thing. Swapping that for an international roster suggests the club now cares more about finding the right players than about keeping a national story going. Plenty of top CS2 teams already work that way, and Astralis looks to be accepting that the old model has run its course.
The siuhy question is the one worth watching. A former Liquid IGL is an obvious candidate to lead, but the club hasn't said so. Whether he takes the calling role, or whether that job sits somewhere else in the five, could shape how quickly this team clicks. The same goes for cmtry's move from AWP to rifle, which is a real gamble on his versatility.
In the short term, the five-match sticker threshold gives Astralis a reason to play a lot of matches quickly. That's no bad thing for a lineup that needs time together before Singapore. Results at Stake Pulse Beat III and Stake Ranked Episode 5 will give the first real read on whether this experiment has legs, but it would be unwise to judge a brand-new roster too harshly on a handful of early games.