The Ukrainian organization has named its first lineup since selling its core to Luminosity, bringing back two players from its 2023 Major playoff run.
Monte have announced a new Counter-Strike lineup, with Viktor ‘sdy’ Orudzhev returning to lead the team. He is joined by Cai ‘CYPHER’ Watson, Alexander ‘br0’ Bro, Vladyslav ‘St0m4k’ Lykhoshva and AWPer Mateusz ‘mantuu’ Wilczewski, with Tiaan ‘T.c’ Coertzen as head coach.
Monte’s new lineup:
sdy- St0m4k
br0
CYPHER
mantuu
T.c (coach)
Back to the Paris Major
The new five has a link to Monte’s best moment. sdy played for the organization from January 2023 to February 2024, and both he and CYPHER were part of the team that reached the playoffs at the BLAST.tv Paris Major in 2023.
sdy was last in action as in-game leader for Passion UA, on loan from ENCE. mantuu takes over the AWP.
The new lineup has already been in action in the Stake Ranked open qualifier, where it was knocked out by Aurora Young Blud.
Starting over after a difficult summer
Monte had to rebuild from scratch. In July, Bymas, Rainwaker, AZUWU and afro all left for Luminosity, with coach kakafu following in August.
The summer also damaged the organization’s reputation. In August, Bymas accused Monte of owing him tens of thousands of dollars in salary, prize money and Major sticker revenue, which we covered at the time. Monte denied the size of the sum in a statement to HLTV.
The organization presented the new team as a fresh start. “We’re writing a new chapter in Monte’s history,” Monte wrote when sdy’s return was announced.
