HEROIC CS2 Rostermania 2025-2026

For the last three years, it has sometimes felt that LMFAO’s Party Rock Anthem’s famous line has been somewhat prophetic in relation to HEROIC’s roster moves because at times, it really does feel like ‘every day I’m shuffling’. But do not fret if you’ve not been able to keep up, as this article will break down all of our roster changes since the start of last year to provide some extra context.

If you’re only interested in reading about our starting lineups for 2026, then read ‘New Year, New HEROIC CS2’ here. Or if you’re looking for our run-down on the Dota 2 squad, then check out 'Changing Lanes' too!

The Big Counter-Strike Shuffle of 2025 Begins

At the very start of 2025, HEROIC’s roster looked as follows:

kyxsan - IGL
degster - AWPer
TeSeS - Entry
NertZ - Lurk
Sjuush - Anchor
sAw - Coach

By January 8th, the core of kyxsan, degster and TeSeS had been bought by Falcons, NertZ had left for Liquid and sjuush moved to NIP, leaving just sAw.

This left HEROIC needing a core of their own, so by January 10th, we picked up LNZ, yxngstxr and xfl0ud from Sangal, before adding SunPayus from Falcons and nilo from Metizport. After his signing, nilo is unfortunately unable to play at the start of the season, so tN1R is signed instead and the roster for the first half of 2025 looks like this:

LNZ - IGL
SunPayus - AWPer
xfl0ud - Rifler
yxngstxr - Rifler
tN1R - Rifler
nilo - Substitute
sAw - Coach

Quick side-note, in a HEROIC classic, the first tournament of the year requires a stand-in as tN1R is unable to secure his Schengen visa in time for BLAST Bounty so maden joins for the event. Otherwise, the team remains unchanged until June.

Founding HEROIC Academy

On April 3rd, HEROIC signed the core of anber, Dengzoe and Scr0b from XI Esports, then fnl from Monte Gen, St0m4k from TNL and doto as coach to form our first ever academy project. Here’s the completed squad:

Dengzoe - IGL
Scr0b - AWPer
anber - Star Rifler
St0m4k - Entry
fnl - Anchor
doto - Coach

The Summer Shuffle

The start of Summer is where we really put the mania into Rostermania. On June 16th, xfl0ud was benched; the following day our strategic coach, Feed, also leaves and the day after that, SunPayus and sAw depart for G2, joined shortly after by our assistant coach, sheddaN.

At the end of June, HEROIC acquired TOBIZ as our new head coach from MOUZ NXT, gr1ks as our new AWPer from Astrum, and nilo is moved onto the starting lineup in place of xfl0ud. R0nic then joined as an analyst on July 15th.

You’d think that would be the end of the shuffle, but after 2 events it was decided that gr1ks’ playstyle didn’t fit in well with the team so he was benched on August 7th. Alkaren joins the squad on loan from Team Spirit Academy, but misses the roster lock for BLAST Bounty 2 so is substituted by Scr0b from the Academy.

The newly completed squad finally got a chance to compete with each other at the Esports World Cup but performance coach, Jens Hofer, is needed to stand-in for TOBIZ because apparently his wedding was more important than Counter-Strike (we promise we’re very happy for him). After taking down Team Spirit in an intense BO3, tN1R decided it would be a good idea to both beat them and join them so xfl0ud is called back up from the bench. That leaves us with this final edition of the roster until the end of the season:

LNZ - IGL
Alkaren - AWPer
xfl0ud - Entry
yxngstxr - Rifler
nilo - Rifler
TOBIZ - Coach

There was one more stand-in appearance from hades due to another round of visa issues for Alkaren at the CS Asia Championships, but the next major roster event was with HEROIC Academy.

In September, after reevaluating the goal of HEROIC Academy, the entire squad was benched so that a new structure could be put in place with more emphasis on creating a direct development pipeline to the main roster. Effectively, HEROIC Academy needed to scout younger players for their team to mold them from the beginning of their careers.

The Winter Playerbreak & the 2026 Season

The final roster change that took place in 2025 was LNZ getting replaced by Chr1zN coming in from OG on November 24th. It was a rough end to the season with HEROIC not making it to the Major for the first time since 2019, hence the need for one more shuffle.

On December 8th, HEROIC Academy returned, bringing St0m4k and doto from the previous lineup and finalising the squad with relatively unknown players as young as 15! This includes Hrdina, Muciek, HOLY and Yoghi.

So to summarise, HEROIC had 23 players and 3 coaches (not including 4 stand-ins) listed as part of their 2 active lineups throughout 2025, which is a lot given it takes 10 to fill both teams in a game of CS. But it wouldn’t be a proper HEROIC new year’s celebration without one more change.

On January 6th, 2026, yxngstxr was also benched for susp, who joined the team from Wildcard - this roster move was not made using ChatGPT as I’m sure susp will be pleased to hear. But before we could compete at the first event of the year, Alkaren got hit by another visa issue, so yxngstxr is currently playing as a strange AWP hybrid which is apparently his calling as we’ve made it to BLAST Bounty playoffs.

In conclusion, these are our 2 rosters at the start of 2026:

HEROIC CS2

Chr1zN - IGL
Alkaren - AWPer
Susp - Support
xfl0ud - Entry
nilo - Star Rifler
yxngstxr - Stand-In
TOBIZ - Coach

HEROIC Academy

Yoghi - IGL
muciek - AWPer
St0m4k - Rifler
HOLY - Rifler
Hrdina - Rifler
doto - Coach

Did you catch all of that? Hopefully now you understand why you’ve seen hades and maden in a HEROIC jersey. With that wrapped up, I guess we'll see you next January when we’ve sold both of these rosters too!

Written by:

Daniil