The worst-kept secret in Counter-Strike right now may well be that Falcons are changing their roster for next season.

Multiple reports have stated that Emil “Magisk” Reif’s time with the Saudi-backed team has come to an end, with Maxim “kyousuke” Lukin set to replace the four-time Major winner.

No trust from the team?

We caught up with former Falcons player Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussen at the BLAST.tv Austin Major to get his thoughts on Magisk’s potential departure.

The Danish analyst touched on Magisk’s dip in form this year, but also pointed to the circumstances around him.

– Obviously, I can’t confirm the rumours of him going in or out of the team. It’s in Falcons’ hands. [After the China Major], they wanted to do a rebuild around Magisk. They obviously knew NiKo was coming into the team, and they wanted to keep Magisk because he was still a guy you could rely on.

Speaking to Pley, dupreeh argues that changing rosters and a lack of trust may have made it tough for Magisk to perform.

– But obviously he has had a hard time. Let’s just be honest. He has not been putting up the numbers that he wants for himself. But he has also been in a hard situation, where he has had to constantly play around new players. At this point, I just think maybe he’s just not very comfortable inside the team anymore. Maybe he feels like the team lacks trust in him, and I don’t think he can perform that way.

“The pressure got to them”

Falcons went into BLAST.tv Austin Major as the biggest contender to battle Vitality for the title. However, as we all witnessed, it ended up as nothing but a disaster for Danny “zonic” Sørensen and his squad.

In our interview with dupreeh, we also asked him about the shocking Major exit.

– The pressure got to them. They found themselves in a situation, where they probably knew coming into to the Major that they were going to make roster changes. No matter how much you try to and leave that on the side, it will always have an effect – especially on the player that’s being outed, but also the rest of the team.

According to dupreeh, things could have looked very different had Falcons hit the ground running.

– They were not a dead team, but it’s always a hard condition to work in. Especially if things don’t go the way you want it. Like, let’s say Falcons went 2-0 on the first day, then I think it would have been a completely different story. Then they would still have been here and maybe have made their way into the playoffs.

Despite having stars like m0NESY and NiKo, Falcons couldn’t recover from their poor start. dupreeh summed it up like this:

– I’m just on this belief with all the things that are going on behind the scenes at Falcons, and then them getting a really bad start was too much to handle for them. They couldn’t bounce back because there were so many ‘what ifs’ circulating inside the team. Obviously, it’s nothing but a disappointment.

Full interview

You can watch the entire interview with dupreeh below.