IHC, the best Asian team in CS:GO at the moment, has bid farewell to its star player Tengis “sk0R” Batjargal today.
The all-Mongolian lineup have been climbing the world ranks this year after knocking out higher-ranked teams like FURIA and Cloud9 from IEM Katowice in February. Sk0R, Garidmagnai “bLitz” Byambasure, Sodbayar “Techno4K” Munkhbold, Baatarkhuu “Bart4k” Batbold, and Tuvshintugs “ANNIHILATION” Nyamdorj recently attended ESL Pro League season 17 and couldn’t reach playoffs following defeats to Outsiders, MIBR, and Fnatic. It’s unclear if the result led to the removal of sk0R prior to the start of the Asian RMR in April, which has two BLAST Paris Major spots up for grabs.
Sk0R played a great part in IHC’s upsets at IEM Katowice. He was their highest-rated player during the Play-In stage in which they eliminated FURIA with a 1.11 rating, according to HLTV. Sk0r was also IHC’s highest-rated player at the group stage of IEM Katowice and ESL Pro League season 17 group A, but the Mongolian team struggled against their opponents.
With the removal of sk0R, it’s unclear what IHC will do next. The Mongolian team has Bat-Enkh “kabal” Batbayar sitting on the bench but he is supposed to be out during the first six months of 2023 due to paternity leave. The pool of professional CS:GO players isn’t big in Mongolia, which could spell trouble for IHC, especially because the organization has to find a player that constantly gets frags during matches as sk0r can.
If kabal is staying on the bench for now, IHC’s alternative is to try poaching one of NKT’s Mongolian players—Erdenetsogt “erkaSt” Gantulga, Yesuntumur “nin9” Gantulga, or Azbayar “Senzu” Munkhbold.
The Asian RMR will be played from April 6 to 9 and IHC will fight against Grayhound Gaming, TYLOO, Rare Atom, Invictus Gaming, Eruption, VERTEX, and Twisted Minds for one of the two BLAST Paris Major spots.
Update March 6 7:37am CT: Sk0R said on an Instagram story that it wasn’t his decision to leave IHC.
