It is the end of an era. ENCE, the Finnish organization that carried a nation's hopes onto the biggest stages in Counter-Strike, has announced that it is filing for bankruptcy after 13 years in esports.

The news came in a short, quiet statement. No long explanation, no countdown, just a dark graphic headed with four words: "The end of an era."

According to the announcement, the Board of Directors of ENCE eSports Oy made "the difficult decision to file for bankruptcy." The organization thanked its players, staff and partners, and saved its final words for the people who were there from the start: "To our fans: thank you for standing with us through every victory and defeat. None of this would have been possible without you."

It ended the only way it could. GG.

A Finnish fairytale

For many Counter-Strike fans, ENCE will always be tied to one spring in Poland. At the Katowice Major in 2019, a squad of mostly Finnish players went on a run nobody saw coming. Led by Aleksib, with allu, Aerial, xseveN and sergej, the team fought its way to the grand final and filled the Spodek with chants of "EZ4ENCE."

They fell to Astralis in that final, but it didn't matter. ENCE had already given Finland its biggest moment in Counter-Strike history, and a chant that the community still hasn't forgotten.

Through every victory and defeat

The years after Katowice brought roster changes, rebuilds, new faces and new hopes, but the orange-and-black kept showing up. The fan base stayed loud through every one of them, and the farewell message makes it clear the organization knows it.

There is no word yet on what happens to ENCE's current players and staff. For now, the Finnish lion goes quiet.

Thanks for the memories, ENCE. EZ4ENCE, one last time.

Magisk is joining BC Game Esports as their in-game leader. With this signing, BCG now have four of their five players confirmed.

The confirmed roster so far: Magisk, s1mple, electroNic and Senzu. Four heavyweights. The fifth spot is still unknown.

Magisk stepping into the IGL role is the part worth paying attention to. He has been one of the best support players in the world for years, and the move to calling feels like a natural evolution. Thorin noted this was an obvious pivot since 2024. BCG clearly agree.

s1mple, electroNic and Senzu were already forming a core worth watching. Add Magisk as the brain of the operation and whoever comes in fifth, and this team goes from interesting to genuinely dangerous.

Out of millions of Pick'Em entries, olofmeister is the only known Counter-Strike profile to have earned the Diamond Coin at IEM Cologne Major 2026.

He predicted Falcons all the way. The team most people had nowhere near lifting the trophy. olofmeister had them going all the way and was right. That alone would be impressive. Getting every other Pick'Em bracket correct on top of it to earn the Diamond Coin is something else entirely.

The man won two Majors as a player. Now he is winning Pick'Ems as a retired legend sitting at home. Seems about right.

r1nkle is officially a G2 player. sunpayus has been benched after one year on the team.

r1nkle was at NiP after being signed from B8 back in April 2024. His 2026 has been rough, averaging a 1.02 rating against top-50 opposition. G2 looked at that and still picked him over their own academy option, kl1m, who stays on loan at MIBR. That tells you something about what they see in the ceiling.

The new G2 roster: huNter-, MATYS, HeavyGod, NertZ, r1nkle. Coach sAw. They debut at BLAST Bounty Season 2 on July 21.

On sunpayus

One year at G2. A BLAST Open London title. And some genuinely bright moments at IEM Cologne, where he made it all the way to the quarter-finals before Spirit ended their run. He was not the problem. The timing just was not on his side.

Can r1nkle deliver?

Honestly, the numbers from early 2026 are not pretty. While sunpayus was making noise in Cologne, r1nkle was going through one of the darker stretches of his career. But I have seen what this kid can do when things click. He has the mechanics, the reads, and the age to grow into something special. G2 is a massive step up in pressure. If it unlocks him rather than buries him, this could end up being a great signing.

He is 21. The potential is real. Now he just has to show it.

Gaimin Gladiators and Gentle Mates are both walking away from CS2. Two orgs, two different stories — but the same punchline. Valve's new sticker economy is not working for everyone.

For IEM Cologne 2026, Valve scrapped the capsule system entirely. No more opening a $0.75 pack and getting a random sticker. Instead, stickers now live in a shop. You buy tokens, you browse the store, you pick what you want. Prices are dynamic — they move based on demand in real time. No cap, no transparency on how much supply exists, no way to know when the price spikes.

The result? donk's Cologne 2026 sticker hit $1,395. A full set of 100 stickers costs nearly $20,000. Popular players print money. The rest get crumbs.

How the revenue actually works

Valve takes 50% off the top. The other 50% is split between the tournament organizer (5%) and the teams (45%). That team pool is distributed based on Valve Regional Standings — the top team gets 2.85% of revenues, the bottom two get 0.72%. Of each team's cut, half goes to the org and the other half is split equally among the five players.

On paper, that sounds fine. In practice it means a team that finishes last gets 0.72% of the 45% team pool. And the team pool is only 45% of whatever the shop actually generates — which is heavily skewed toward stickers of players like donk, NiKo, and a handful of others that fans actually want.

Gaimin Gladiators went 0-3 in the first group stage. 31st-32nd place. Minimum payout, maximum embarrassment. Their stickers sat at the bottom of the shop with no demand pulling the price up, while the top 40 list was dominated by players from Falcons, Spirit, and G2.

Gaimin Gladiators are out

GG benched their entire roster following Cologne and cited the new Major ecosystem and revenue structure directly in their statement. They were candid about it in a way most orgs are not. Running a CS2 team is expensive. If sticker revenue was the one mechanism that made it sustainable, and that mechanism now rewards only the teams at the very top, the math stops working fast.

Gentle Mates are out too

Gentle Mates did not even make the last two Majors. The French org picked up a Spanish roster in August 2025 and it never clicked. They are now in negotiations to sell the roster and walk away from Counter-Strike entirely. KOI and Heretics are reportedly interested in taking the players.

These two are probably not the last. The old capsule system was imperfect, but it spread some revenue more democratically. You bought a capsule without knowing what was inside, and every team in it got a slice. The new shop model is demand-driven and popularity-based. That is great for Falcons. That is brutal for everyone else.

Valve built a system that makes the sticker economy feel like a stock market. The problem is that in a stock market, only a few stocks go to the moon. The rest just sit there.

It is official. Cache is coming back to the CS2 active duty map pool for Premier Season 5, replacing Overpass. Valve confirmed the swap following the conclusion of IEM Cologne Major 2026.

Cache returns after a seven-year absence from the competitive pool, having been removed back in 2019. The map was remade by its original creator FMPONE, purchased by Valve, and officially added to CS2 in April 2026. It has been playable in Competitive and Casual since then, but Season 5 marks its entry into the official Active Duty rotation.

Overpass exits after just one year in the pool, having been played only 13 times across Stage 3 and the playoffs at IEM Cologne. The new Active Duty pool will be: Dust2, Mirage, Inferno, Nuke, Ancient, Anubis and Cache. No release date for Season 5 has been announced yet. The first tier-one event expected to feature Cache is BLAST Bounty on July 21.

KRIMZ has a new home. After ten years at fnatic and a spell on the bench, the 32-year-old Swedish rifler has signed with EYEBALLERS, replacing bobeksde in their all-Swedish lineup.

The move reunites KRIMZ with Jesper "JW" Wecksell, his former fnatic teammate from 2014 to 2021. The two won Major titles together at ESL One Cologne and ESL One Katowice in 2015. KRIMZ was direct about what drew him back: "It feels right to be here. EYEBALLERS is a Swedish project with people I know and trust, and lining up next to JW again after all these years is special. I've still got a lot to give, and I'm excited to do it at home, in front of Swedish fans."

JW echoed the sentiment: "Getting to do it again, this time at EYEBALLERS, means a lot to me personally." EYEBALLERS now field a full Swedish five: JW, KRIMZ, dex, Ro1f and maxster, coached by pita.