NRG is reportedly close to signing a CS2 roster to return to Counter-Strike after a four-year absence. The core will be made up of AWPer oSee, IGL daps, and the rifler Brehze, according to a report from HLTV on Nov. 27.
The two remaining spots on the team are still being decided, HLTV’s report also suggested, with NRG considering riflers Justin “FaNg” Coakley and Jadan “HexT” Postma for the roles. They are currently under contract with Complexity and Evil Geniuses respectively and would likely require buyouts to acquire. Should NRG sign all five of these players, North American fans would instantly get a new CS2 team to support heading into the 2024 season.
The quintet of daps, oSee, Brehze, FaNg, and HexT was spotted playing together on third-party matchmaking platform FACEIT on Nov. 27, which only adds fuel to HLTV’s report. Out of all these players, oSee is by far the one closest to his peak, as he was a part of Team Liquid’s starting Counter-Strike lineup between December 2021 and November 2023 and has performed well in multiple tier-one events across that time.
The rest of the players have been nowhere near oSee’s level. Daps spent the past two years mostly as Liquid’s coach and is definitely far from his best years in terms of raw mechanical skill, Brehze and HexT didn’t accomplish anything great with EG during the same period, and FaNg has been on Complexity’s bench since June after the Dallas-based org signed EliGE.
What may have motivated NRG to give an opportunity to daps and Brehze is the fact they played together for the org between 2016 and 2019. Together they helped NRG become a top-four team in the world in HLTV’s ranking in 2019 and make a lot of deep runs in prestigious tournaments. NRG has been away from CS since September 2019, when it sold its lineup to EG. Dot Esports has reached out to NRG for comment.
NRG’s return, nonetheless, is good news for the NA scene as Complexity, Liquid, Nouns, and EG are the only orgs making investments in NA players. That said, EG could be on the verge of abandoning esports after multiple employees were laid off earlier this month.
