Sangal has announced that Max "PANIX" Hangebruch will be joining their team as the new AWPer, replacing Love "phzy" Smidebrant. Phzy, who had been Sangal's highest-rated player this year with a 1.09 rating, now finds himself on the bench after joining the mixed team on loan from Ninjas in Pyjamas back in August last year. 

Sangal will be hoping that the addition of PANIX will help turn their fortunes around and bring them back to the heights they reached in 2022, where they secured a top-four finish at the BLAST Premier Spring Showdown.

It remains to be seen how the new lineup will perform, but Sangal fans will be hoping that adding PANIX will bring a fresh spark to the team and help them return to their winning ways. The 24-year-old AWPer will be joining Sangal on fire after delivering a 1.24 rating across nine maps.

With recent roster changes Sangal looks as follows:

{cflag:AL} Klesti "⁠stikle-⁠" Kola (coach)

{cflag:SE} Love "⁠phzy⁠" Smidebrant (benched)

phzy

PANIX

Sangal

The recent news of both OG and Fnatic putting their academy projects on hold came to me at first as a surprise, for me the academy projects as a whole were more successful than what I had expected initially. Their tournaments had a considerable amount of viewership, the players were given exposure and support and, on top of that, top tier players were being produced (as it is shown in both b1t and m0NESY rookie year’s performance).

However, my perspective was that of a spectator, I never stopped to think about how profitable these projects were and the “risk” involved in them. If we look at the players who transitioned the best to tier 1 (m0NESY, b1t, xertioN, JDC, torzsi) we also have to look at the players who had a tough transition.

Just to clarify, a decrease in rating when transitioning into tier 1 is both expected and normal, even the players that I used as examples of a good adaptation to tier 1 suffer from it, therefore, it is not the only indicator to determine if the player managed to adapt or not to the highest level of counter-strike.

The best examples of players not adapting completely to tier 1 are, in my opinion, MistR, ztr, LNZ and phzy, however it is not completely on them that they didn’t manage to adapt. In all cases they were called to fill a gap for the time being, in other words, they were not supposed to be there, which is a completely opposite case to the players that I mentioned did adapt well. In the case of the three ex-NIP players they were called into a team that already had structure and identity problems, which only got worse when device took the mental health break. For MistR it was moreless the same, Astralis was already struggling to find a consistent way to win as they heavily depended on both blameF and k0nfig to have stellar performances and when the latter was let go due to some issues the lack of firepower was more evident than ever, and Astralis knew MistR wouldn’t fill that gap.

[image:{"source":"cloudinary","publicId":"misc/Can_he_replace_k0nfig_mukjnt","originalWidth":1280,"originalHeight":720,"customWidth":"100%","customHeight":"100%","cloudinaryAssetData":true,"cloudName":"pley-gg","format":"jpg"}]

See the pattern yet? When the team wants the player to permanently be part of the roster (G2 signing m0NESY, MOUZ adapting the system to the ex-academy players, Na’Vi trying out b1t before fully introducing him) they end up adapting well to tier 1 and in some cases reaching super-star levels of performance and when the team only promotes the academy players in order to temporarily fill a gap these players are not given the chance nor the necessary support to fully transition.

We have already seen that the academy project can produce plenty of players different in skill and style, and these have varying results that are directly affected by the organization’s commitment on said player, but what about the players that are never called to fill a gap or to be promoted permanently to the main roster? 

Without exact numbers of players and staff’s salaries and how much revenue the team as a whole generates we will never know for sure if the academy projects are profitable or not (or if it is result-dependent). However, the fact that  OG and Fnatic (two well established organizations not only in CS:GO) have decided to put them on hold tells that at the very least it is an investment of both time and money to consider and some organizations might just want to be extra safe.

One can only speculate and hope, maybe they will resume their academy projects in the near future, maybe they won’t, I don’t really know, but I do hope that this is not the beginning of the end for the academy projects as a whole because I think they are really healthy for the professional scene and offer unique opportunities.

MistR

Natus Vincere

Fnatic

MOUZ

Ninjas in Pyjamas

G2 Esports

Throughout the ESL RMR Major, Insane moments were caught live doing these intense matches. Moments when the whole Twitch chat went crazy because of "VAC" kills.

Jump shooting in the face, wall banks without knowing someone is there, and no scopes in smoke were some of these impressive kills which played out doing the RMR Major qualifier. The young Sweeden AWPer Love "phzy" Smidebrant denies the gravity theory by jumping mid air hitting a no scope to xertioN standing on A-site Ancient. This was just one of many impossible kills doing the ESL RMR Major.

Sangal has announced that the 19-year-old AWPer phzy will be joining their roster just shortly after they revealed that S3NSEY got benched. phzy has achieved a top-four finish at ESL Pro Leauge and a well-deserved second-place at IEM Winter, when he played for the main team at Ninja in Pyjamas. 

phzy has been looking for a new team since April when Young Ninjas announced that they will be releasing him, LNZ and Spaec, because they wanted to get some fresh players into their academy project. 

Sangal has had a tough year, finishing last in the ESL Challenger League, while struggling to make much headway in the world rankings where they peaked in 55th place. 

After having been a part of the NIP organization for more than a year, Linus "LNZ" Holtäng, Love "phzy" Smidebrant, and Anton "Sapec" Palmgren are leaving the Swedish academy team.

"LNZ" and "phzy" have both had the pleasure of being temporary stand-ins on the main Ninjas squad, and are now looking to get in touch with other organizations.

"Sapec" on the other hand has already found a new home with Hellslayers, a team that features Swedish veterans "flusha" and "JW".

With three going out, the Young Ninjas have three new ones coming in. The new Ninjas are 17-year-old Adam "adamb" Ångström, 17-year-old Max "maxster" Jansson, and 15-year-old Adrian "7EMPORARY" Mehrara.

Sapec

Young Ninjas

Day 1 of the main event at IEM Katowice saw Ninjas in Pyjamas upset Gambit. The defending champions are still alive at the tournament, but will now have to do it the hard way through the lower brackets.

The upset started on Ancient. A map that has developed into a favorite so far at IEM Katowice with several teams picking into the newest map in the competitive map pool. Today it was Ninjas in Pyjamas, who took their chances on the ancient battlefield.

It quickly turned out to be a game of CT sides. Gambit took the first half 11-4, while NIP did it a bit better winning the second half 12-2. A strong start from the Swedish Ninjas, who had shown some weakness during the Play-in, made the performance even more impressive.

The second map favored Gambit big time. NIP had only played two competitive matches on Vertigo during the last six months, but their victory against Movistar Riders yesterday had given them enough confidence to not ban one of Gambit's favorite maps. At 10-10 in the second half, it seemed like a very good idea for Hampus 'hampus' Poser and his troops to play the map, but then the Swedes literally fell off the map (es3tag missed a runboost). The economy game did not favor NIP at the end, who did too many force buys to really pose a threat to Gambit who closed down the map 16-11.

Overpass was the setting for the decider. Again Gambit was heavily favored looking at the statistics, but the feeling on the server was strangely off-tune for the Russians, who struggled. On their T side NIP managed to win the half despite Overpass being CT favored recently. 

NIP continued with a stellar opening to the second half winning to completely shut down Gambit. The defending champions did not win a single round until it was almost all over at 7-15 in the second half. NIP completed the upset a round later and threw Gambit down to the lower bracket of IEM Katowice after a spectacular win on Overpass with Love 'phzy' Smidebrant as the big hero for NIP.

Gambit – Ninjas in Pyjamas 1-2 | IEM Katowice

13-16 (Ancient) | {cflag:SE} hampus – 1.31 Rating / 24-20 K-D / 98.1 ADR

16-11 (Vertigo) | {cflag:RU} Ax1Le - 1.53 Rating / 25-13 K-D / 99.3 ADR

8-16 (Overpass) | {cflag:SE} phzy - 1.47 Rating / 22-14 K-D / 82.5 ADR

MVP: {cflag:KZ} Abay 'HObbit' Khasenov - 1.17 Rating / 62-58 K-D / 91.2 ADR

hampus

Ax1Le

Hobbit

Gambit Esports

With Nicolai "dev1ce" Reedtz still sidelined as he recovers from mental health issues, the stand-in player for Ninjas in Pyjamas, Love "phzy" Smidebrant played a key part in NIP's surprise win against Natus Vincere Friday evening at BLAST Premier Spring Groups.

[slugORMA:{"slug":"navi-suffers-upset-loss-again-blast","isNewTab":true}]

The 19-year-old Young Ninjas player scored a career-high rating (vs top 30 teams) on the decider map, Mirage against s1mple and company, as he assisted in the big upset win. After the match, the desk at BLAST asked his teammate Nicolas "Plopski" Gonzalez Zamora about the strengths of the young AWP'er.

[twitchVideo:blastpremier/clip/AntsyAffluentSalmonANELE-0ynbyvcm3hY9JRIc]

While the future of dev1ce is still uncertain, perhaps Love "phzy" Smidebrant could be a more permanent option for the Swedish Ninjas. A question that Plopski was also asked during the interview.

[twitchVideo:blastpremier/clip/EncouragingMoralCucumberBCouch-L6cQ4wE8hMLP9OvX]

Ninjas in Pyjamas and phzy will face OG tomorrow at BLAST Spring Groups.

Plopski

After a phenomenal ending to 2021, Natus Vincere is still yet to find its shape in 2022. At BLAST Premier Spring Groups, the tournament favorites lost their first two matches, which left them with the longest way possible to qualify for the Spring Finals.

In Round 2 of the Gauntlet, the defending BLAST World Champions took on Ninjas in Pyjamas. The fight began on Nuke, where NAVI turned up the heat on their CT-side to win the map 16-11.

On Nuke it was NAVI’s in-game leader Kirill 'Boombl4' Mikhailov who spearheaded the offense and defense for the CIS team. On Overpass it was Hampus 'hampus' Poser who popped off in a big way for NIP. The Swedish in-game leader made the most kills, most damage, most assists, and most first kills on the map to lead his team to a solid 16-11 win.

The third and final map was set on Mirage. Here NIP played a stellar CT side to put NAVI under pressure before the second half. Down 10-5, all eyes were on s1mple. It became evident that the Ukrainian had to step up massively to be able to save his team, who were a long way from last year’s highs. But nothing could hinder the incoming humiliation of NAVI. Worth mentioning is of course the roster of Ninjas in Pyjamas, who once again showed, that they can still deliver despite missing their star AWP'er Nicolai "dev1ce" Reedtz, who is still not ready to play. In-game leader Hampus 'hampus' Poser was for the third map straight pivotal for the Swedes, who won Mirage 16-7.

NIP will now play OG in the next round, while NAVI will have one last chance to qualify for the Spring Finals on Sunday against either OG or NIP.

Ninjas in Pyjamas – NAVI 2-1 | BLAST Premier Spring Groups

11-16 (Nuke) | {cflag:RU} Boombl4 – 1.31 Rating / 20-14 K-D / 71.3 ADR

16-11 (Overpass) | {cflag:SE} hampus 1.59 Rating / 26-14 K-D / 105.9 ADR

16-7 (Mirage) | {cflag:SE} phzy 1.67 Rating / 24-14 K-D / 112.7 ADR

 MVP: {cflag:SE} Hampus 'hampus' Poser - 1.35 Rating / 62-50 K-D / 98.2 ADR

Boombl4

Ninjas in Pyjamas have announced that Nicolai “device” Reedtz will once again miss an event, this time the BLAST Premier World Final as he continues to recover from an illness. 

That means Young Ninjas’ AWPer in Love “phzy” Smidebrant will once gain have to step in for the main roster after he previously helped NiP in the IEM Winter event. There, the 19-year-old AWPer took part in the victory against G2 and helped the Ninjas reach the grand final of the tournament. 

[slugORMA:{"slug":"ninjas-pyjamas-reach-grand-final-iem-winter-without-device","isNewTab":true}]

phzy and the rest of the Ninjas are set to face off against G2 again in their opening matchup at BLAST Premier World Final, on Wednesday at 13:30 (CET). The winner of the match will be taking upon either Vitality or Astralis in the upper semi-finals. 

device

Watch the Grand Final of IEM Winter live.

The match will be played as a best of five. To the surprise of everyone, Ninjas in Pyjamas advanced from the Semi-Finals after a 2-1 win against G2. NIP played the match with 19-year-old Love 'phzy' Smidebrant as a stand-in for starplayer Nicolai "dev1ce" Reedtz, who had to withdraw due to illness. 

Can the Swedish Ninjas do it again? This time they face Team Vitality, who already once in this tournament has beaten NIP.

Map veto: Inferno - Dust2 - Nuke - Mirage - Overpass

	30 days	90 days
Fixture count	0	0
Maps count	0	0

phzy

Player stats

Articles mentioning phzy

PANIX to replace phzy at Sangal

How successful are the academy projects?

Video: VAC moments from the RMRs

Phzy joins Sangal on loan

LNZ, phzy and Sapec leave Young Ninjas

Huge upset! NIP sends defending champions to the lower bracket!

Plopski on phzy: I have never seen a guy with so much confidence

NAVI suffers upset loss again at BLAST

Danish AWPer will miss another event for NiP

Live: IEM Winter Grand Final

Follow Pley