Just like with real-world sports, roster reshuffles and player transfers never fail to dominate the headlines and get the community talking in the Esports world. As one of the industry’s most lucrative titles, CS:GO has brought with it a plethora of ambitious and audacious moves from orgs and players over the years. Here are some of the biggest CS:GO transfers of all time.
NiKo (Mousesports to FaZe Clan)
Nikola “NiKo” Kovač has played Counter-Strike competitively for over a decade now but began his meteoric ascension during his time with Mousesports from 2015-2017. Regarded early on as being one of the most mechanically gifted players of his time and with all the potential to break out as a future top-three player in the world, NiKo was almost singlehandedly responsible for dragging a fairly mediocre-looking Mousesports side to a succession of respectable finishes.
FaZe’s audacious acquisition of this highly rated prodigy player broke headlines around the community when it was announced in February 2017, and it soon became clear that the org were all in on the Bosnian. Throughout his three-year stint with FaZe, NiKo would be promoted to IGL, win seven MVP tournament awards, see his reach the number one ranking the world, and come to within one round of a Major win at ELEAGUE Boston 2018.
He would also accrue a reputation for being a ‘do it all himself’ figure within the FaZe Clan set up, taking responsibility for all of the calling, deciding future roster reshuffles, and being relied upon as the team’s chief fragging power in the server.
dev1ce (Astralis to Ninjas in Pyjamas)
With four Major titles with two MVP prformances behind him, Nicolai “dev1ce” Reedtz might just be a contender for the greatest CS:GO player of all time. An ever-present star for Astralis during their five-year dominance at the top table of the game’s competitive scene, dev1ce has been an HLTV top twenty ranker for seven years in a row (finishing in the top five for six years straight), won the most amount of HLTV MVP awards in the history of the game, and broken the record for the most amount of MVP awards in a single year with 7 in 2018 alone.
In April 2021 however, just over four months on from another MVP performance at the IEM Global Challenge, headlines across the Esports world were broken by the news that dev1ce had completed a stunning move to Ninjas in Pyjamas The level of press coverage and conversation amongst the community was something unique for the Esports world and has gone a long way in injecting the industry with a new level of exposure in the months since.
The pressure and expectation are still well and truly on for dev1ce and co. however, with the org failing to truly set the world alight since the Danish AWPer’s arrival.
