Astralis Sign br0, Tasking dev1ce With The Leadership Role

A day after the benching of in-game leader Benjamin “blameF” Bremer, Astralis has announced the star player’s replacement, former Monte player Alexander “br0” Bro. With this change, Nicolai “dev1ce” Reedtz will bear the responsibilities of an in-game leader.

Welcome home, Alexander ‘@br0CSGO‘ Bro 🔥

Read more about the signing:

— Astralis Counter-Strike (@AstralisCS) February 29, 2024

br0 began his professional Counter-Strike career playing for Astralis Talent, the organization’s academy roster. After a superb showing in academy and Tier 3 tournaments, the Dane was called in by Volodymyr “Woro2k” Veletnjuk and Viktor “sdy” Orudzhev to play for the Ukrainian organization Monte. 

During his time in the new environment, br0 could not achieve too many results with Monte apart from a win at ESL Challenger Jönköping 2023, but the roster was consistently ranked within the top ten teams globally. Following a disappointing run at the Copenhagen Major RMR, sdy announced his departure from the roster, and br0 exited with him. 

Just a few days after Monte announced roster changes, br0 found his way back to the Astralis organization, but this time, in the main roster. He shared a few words on his entrance to the team:

“I’m insanely happy to return to Astralis. I know what I’m talking about when I say it’s a fantastic organization, and it really hurt to see them miss the Major because I know how much it means to everybody here. However, it has opened up opportunities for me, and I will do everything to show that I am the best choice for the team,” the newest recruit said.

The community was stunned with this signing, not because br0 isn’t a capable player, but because dev1ce will transition to the in-game leader role. The problem with blameF wasn’t his inability to frag on the server, but rather the mismatch in roles from taking calling responsibilities. 

All fans expected Astralis to replace blameF with an in-game leader; it was supposed to be the whole point of the move. But to move their best player and AWPer, dev1ce, and put more on his plate was a shocking curveball. 

Regardless, dev1ce mentioned he was super motivated to take on the new role of being an in-game leader and intends to continue doing so for the rest of his career. The 28-year-old noted he had always been the secondary caller in the team for gla1ve and blameF, so the idea of becoming the primary caller naturally came up with this roster shift. 

The community isn’t particularly satisfied with this change, with personalities mentioning Denmark is notoriously known for producing the best in-game leaders in the world, but a storied organization like Astralis couldn’t get their hands on any of them.

How is it possible to be the country with the most IGLs in Tier 1, 2, 3 and end up with dev1ce as the in-game leader? How does that make sense? https://t.co/KjQZeJHg74

— KRL (@KRL_STREAM) February 29, 2024

Kasper Straube, the Sports Director for Astralis, mentioned br0 would be perfect to take on a “space-creating” role in the team and enable the four other players. This type of play style would allow the four other players to play their preferred positions and get maximum value.

Though most were excited to see dev1ce take on a new challenge, many personalities feared this was the wrong move. At the very least, dev1ce will receive some much-needed help from newly-appointed coach Casper “ruggah” Due, who previously worked with OG Esports. 

Header: Astralis