When you think of a former major winner, I bet the first name that springs to your mind is not William "RUSH" Wierzba. Nonetheless, "RUSH" did in fact win a major back in 2018 with the charismatic and loveable Cloud9 roster in Boston, America. 

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Since peaking with Cloud9 back in 2018, the 29-year-old rifler has had a tumultuous time within the professional CS:GO scene, never really finding his stride. Now the Amercian is officially back to being a free agent, as Evil Geniuses release the previous major winner from their ranks. 

The American seems unready to bid farewell to the beautiful game of Counter-Strike and states that he is ready for future endeavors, whether it be in CS:GO or CS2. What the future holds for the talented rifler no one knows, however, the release of the previous major winner "RUSH" gives us another opportunity to reminisce on the fantastic 2018 major. 

RUSH

Evil Geniuses

According to a report from blix.gg Jake 'Stewie2k' Yip and William 'RUSH' Wierzba are going to be benched from the active EG roster. The two have averaged a 0.93 and 0.95 rating in their time with the roster, and it now looks like there are no more chances for the two veterans.

The American organization is reportedly looking to sign either Sanzhar 'neaLaN' Iskhakov or Rasmus 'HooXi' Nielsen as their new IGL. To take 'RUSH's place, it looks like Valdemar 'valde' Bjørn is the #1 wish for the Americans. 

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Stewie2K

Fans of Evil Geniuses have not had an easy time lately. June 2021 was the last time that a roster from Evil Geniuses was able to beat a top 20 team in the world.

Since then EG has fallen down the rankings and is no longer even playing teams from the upper echelon of CS:GO. All of this with a roster containing three Major-winners and a bucket of experience from the highest levels of CS:GO. 

Last night the NA team was knocked out of the BLAST Premier Spring Showdown in the opening round against GODSENT. After the match William "RUSH" Wierzba commented on the situation.

- It is unacceptable the way we are playing. And the result we are getting and not getting to the Major is no doubt bad. So we have to really sit down as a team and organization and talk to each other and see what makes the most sense going forward. Whether it be continuing with this roster or changing something. But something needs to change for sure.

[twitchClip:NastyBombasticMeerkatNinjaGrumpy-7nhV8db0UXn6tbDq]

For the former Complexity player, the current downfall of EG hurts extra much. After having missed the PGL Major in Stockholm with Complexity, William "RUSH" Wierzba had targeted the upcoming Major in Antwerp as a big goal in 2022.

- It hurt not making it to the major. I really put everything into that, so that hurt a lot and is probably one of the worst losses in my career.

[twitchClip:TriumphantEncouragingPeppermintFUNgineer-m-3XIe4bRe1AB15h]

Earlier today Evil Geniuses got their Major dreams shattered by the South American underdogs from 9z, as they were eliminated from the Americas RMR event. The NA heavy hitter failed to secure the victory despite being up 12-7 on the deciding map.

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After the disappointing exit, Evil Geniuses’ experienced rifler Will “RUSH” Wierzba gave a very honest statement on his Twitter, saying the team didn’t deserve to qualify for the Major in their current state.

- Well, we didn't make the major.  Completely deserved win by 9z. I'm at a loss for words right now but it's safe to say we're playing abysmal CS right now and there is no excuse, RUSH wrote and continued:

- I've been dark on all social media the last month so I could focus every ounce of energy into this team and it just wasn't enough.  We don't deserve the major in our current state, I'm sorry.

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Here are some more reactions/statements from the Evil Geniuses roster after today's loss.

The first match of Group C had the new look Vitality, who recently added the Astralis-trio of "magisk", "dupreeh", and "zonic", going up against the new Evil Geniuses, who have added, "Stewie2k", "RUSH", and "autimatic" to their lineup. Vitality came into the match as the favorites, being a team filled with superstars, while EG was somewhat of a question mark with multiple players being away from the professional CS:GO scene for quite some time.

The map pick fell upon the legendary decider of Inferno, and had the French/Danish squad starting on the defending side, while EG took on the task of the terrorists.

Right from the get-go, it was very close between the two contenders. EG had a lot of promising rounds with good entries from "RUSH", but it did not amount to any round wins as Vitality went on a winning streak to start the game. The Americans finally broke the defense after six-round losses and started taking some rounds for themselves. After EG had gotten themselves three rounds, the French/Danish squad decided that that was plenty, and they once again took over completely. Vitality was firing on all cylinders with no one under eleven frags and went to halftime with a lead of 12-3.

Vitality kept the momentum into the second half and kept their T-side clean, which led to a massive 16-3 victory for the newly assembled French/Danish squad.

Vitality – Evil Geniuses (1-0) | BLAST Premier Spring Groups 2022

apEX {cflag:FR} – 2.11 Rating / 24-9 K-D / 146.5 ADR

apEX

Team Vitality

The big North American esports organization Evil Geniuses has completed the creation of their new superstar roster, with the addition of William “RUSH” Wierzba. The experienced rifler will be the last piece in the lineup which also features profiles like Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip and Vincent "⁠Brehze⁠" Cayonte, EG confirmed on Thursday evening.

With the transfer to Evil Geniuses, RUSH returns to activity after having been out of competition since July last year, where he was benched by Complexity after a period of lacklustre results.

- BACK WITH THE BOYS.  Having a break was the perfect mental reset I needed from Complexity to get me into the mindset needed for a fresh project.  I'm looking forward to proving myself again with this group of gamers, RUSH wrote on [link:{"url":"https://twitter.com/RUSH/status/1484229750050766854","isNewTab":true,"text":"Twitter"}]. 

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The revived Evil Geniuses team will get their debut at BLAST Premier Spring Groups in nine days when they take on Vitality in the opening round of the big event. A matchup where we will see the former ELEAGUE Boston Major winner trio of RUSH, Stewie2K and autimatic back on the server together after years apart.

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{cflag:US} Vincent "⁠Brehze⁠" Cayonte

{cflag:BG} Tsvetelin "⁠CeRq⁠" Dimitrov

{cflag:FR} Damien "⁠maLeK⁠" Marcel (coach)

CeRq

Brehze

autimatic

compLexity Gaming

Last night the Chief Executive Officer at Evil Geniuses, Nicole LaPointe Jameson posted a rather cryptic tweet on her personal Twitter account, starting out “Regarding Evil Geniuses CS:GO…”.

The post looks like to be a quite unusual announcement or teaser for the new-look Evil Geniuses side, which has been rumoured to contain the ELEAGUE Boston Major winners Timothy "⁠autimatic⁠" Ta, Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip, and William "⁠RUSH⁠" Wierzba.

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Here is the entire Twitter thread by the EG CEO:

- I know you all want roster news to come Autimatically

- But our official announcement next week will make things easy-Brehze

- In all seriousness, we are here to save NA CS. Get hyped to learn about the team and why they joined starting next week. Give Evil Geniuses a follow to get all the content!

It doesn’t take an expert to identify the hidden players in Jameson’s tweets, as they also correspond with all the players which have been reported to the North American organization. The roster will most likely look like this going into the 2022 season.

{cflag:BG} Tsvetelin "⁠CeRq⁠" Dimitrov 

{cflag:US} Timothy "⁠autimatic⁠" Ta (Not confirmed)

{cflag:US} Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip (Not confirmed)

{cflag:US} William "⁠RUSH⁠" Wierzba (Not confirmed)

The former Heroic, and MAD Lions coach, Luis "peacemaker" Tadeu was appointed new coach for Complexity in late July. The Brazilian took over the reins from Jamie "keita" Hall, who together with Will "RUSH" Wierzba was benched after a result-wise dry start to 2021.

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Jamie "keita" Hall has joined the coaching staff on Fnatic since his departure.

The new coach was immediately put to test, after Kristian "k0nfig" Wienecke's injury shortly before the start of ESL Pro League. 

- The biggest challenge has been the k0nfig situation. We had to go over all the strats and how we would play with Niels Christian "NaToSaphiX" Sillassen as a stand-in. But I am really happy with how things are going so far, the Brazilian told Pley.gg at an online press conference before the playoffs at ESL Pro League.

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Complexity managed to qualify for the playoffs despite the injury for star player Kristian "k0nfig" Wienecke. With that in mind, the big question is, how far can "The Juggernaut" go in the future?

- The team has a lot of potential. People work really hard and I can see, that they have a winning mentality in the sense, that they want to put down work, they want to watch demos and they take criticism really well, and nobody has an ego. So that is nice, and probably why they have been successful in the past, and they are, where they are right now. So with a few adjustments and with a few things we want to change on our game, I think we can go really far for sure, the 33-year-old coach states.

NaToSaphiX

k0nfig

William ’RUSH’ Wierzba is no longer contracted with Complexity and is therefore permitted to pursue other options, the rifler states on Twitter. The parting concludes a nearly two-year partnership with the NA-based organization, which he joined after having previously represented OpTic Gaming and Cloud9.

In the statement, RUSH explained that Riot’s first-person shooter Valorant also could be a possibility for him in the future.

RUSH played for Cloud9 from 2017-2019, where he was a member of the iconic roster who won the ELEAGUE Major in Boston in 2018 after a fantastic comeback against FaZe. His biggest tournament victory with Complexity was at BLAST Premier Spring 2020, which granted them a huge $335.000 prize earning.

Kristian "⁠k0nfig⁠" Wienecke (Sick leave)

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Complexity were supposed to be the juggernaut rolling through the competition, but RUSH, blameF, k0nfig, jks, and poizon haven’t won a tournament in over a year.

So, what’s gone wrong? Are they playing the wrong maps? Have they made bad signings? Are their tactics not working out? Something has to change soon!

blameF

poizon

What you may not know is that it wasn’t just tarik, RUSH, Skadoodle, automatic, and the Smoke Criminal who took home the ELEAGUE Major 2018 title.

It was also their coach, Soham “valens” Chowdhury, a Stanford-educated, tech-obsessed tactical genius who left one of the world’s most prestigious companies in Tesla to not only compete in and coach professional CS:GO, but make it a little more calculated.

To help North-American Counter-Strike from becoming less of a meme and more of a science.

tarik

Cloud9

Complexity has formed a Danish core in their roster after completing the signing of 25-year-old Patrick “es3tag” Hansen, who now is the is the third Dane in the line-up. The 25-year-old joins the American organization on a free transfer after being released from Cloud9 to fill the gap left by William “RUSH” Wierzba, who got benched on Thursday.

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“We’ve had an eye on es3tag for quite some time as he’s obviously an amazing player. Additionally, beyond that I believe his work ethic, attitude, and knowledge of the game will help get this roster to the next level where it belongs. I’m extremely excited to welcome him to the Complexity family.” CEO, Jason Lake told HLTV.org.

es3tag will reunite with his former teammate from Heroic, Benjamin “blameF” Bremer, and return to activity for the first time since Cloud9 decided to put their CS:GO division on hold.

{cflag:DK} Kristian “k0nfig” Wienecke

{cflag:US} William “RUSH” Wierzba (benched)

es3tag

William “RUSH” Wierzba has been benched from Complexity’s squad, as the second in the last week. The 27-year-old American spent 21-months on the team, during which they won the BLAST Premier EU Fall Finals.

“It’s been an absolute pleasure working with RUSH and I can’t state enough how impressed I was in his professionalism during a very challenging time. He’s an incredible person who I admire greatly and I will miss him moving forward.” CEO of the organization, Jason Lake told HLTV.org in a statement.

RUSH will now have the opportunity to go home after spending the past 18 months in Europe and find out what the next move will be.

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It's been a year and some time since we last had a LAN event in Counter-Strike. The BLAST Premier Spring Finals was the last tournament before the world went into a lockdown in 2020.

Back then it was Complexity, who could celebrate a tournament victory. 

But since then, things have not evolved as "The Juggernaut" would have wanted. A lack of results have put the roster under scrutiny before the start of IEM Cologne.

- I think that this tournament is a big telling point for our team. I am not saying, that we need to win the tournament, but we need to reach the Quarter-Finals or playoffs. If we go out in the groups or play-in, that would be a bad thing for us. We have had this roster for some time now, and we need to be more consistent, Will "RUSH" Wierzba explains in a press conference.

His teammate Kristian "k0nfig" Wienecke is on the same page, and reflects on the frustrations, that the team has endured throuhout the year.

- I think we are in a bad state because we have not achieved anything we wanted, and we have not done any damage as a team for an entire year now. I think we been really unlucky. We lost so many close games, and have not gotten the points we needed, so we have almost only went down on the rankings. But i still believe in this team, and I believe that we can win this tournament.

Complexity will need to qualify for the main tournament via the Play-in. Here they are paired with the Chinesee team ViCi gaming. A match that k0nfig and his teammates will try not to underestimate, despite them being huge favorites beforehand.

- A best of 1 is always hard. We could easily lose that match, even though we should win it. We are in a bad state right now, but hopefully we can win, the Dane says.

The match starts tomorrow at 15.20 (CEST). You can follow IEM Cologne closely throughout the whole tournament on Pley.gg

ViCi

After a thrilling matchup between G2 and FaZe at BLAST Premier Spring Final, which saw NiKo and company continue their lower bracket run, it's time to set sight on Gambit vs Complexity. 

The winner of the match will grab a favourable upper final spot, while the loser is being sent down in the knockout bracket in a tough matchup against G2. Watch the match right here on Pley! 

Gambit Esports

Complexity has been one of the most unstable teams in the online era.

Despite being underdogs in today's match against Ninjas in Pyjamas, Complexity won in dominant fashion. An upswing result for Complexity is usually followed by a loss in the next match. But that needs to change according to the team's American player Will "RUSH" Wierzba.

- We are in a pretty long bootcamp right now. We are about two or three weeks in it, and we are going to be together for 40 days. I think this is really going to help us grow as a team. And I think this is a real chance for us to show some consistency. And if we don't show some results in this 40 days span, I think there will be changes going forward, the Complexity rifler told the desk at BLAST.

[twitchVideo:blastpremier/clip/PoorTawdryGoshawkItsBoshyTime-mDJ_pzG8gO2yVG7x]

The next opponent will be Gambit, who RUSH looks forward to getting revenge against.

[twitchVideo:blastpremier/clip/WrongAlluringCockroachBCouch-gs5yY4Cb2IC9cXjl]

The first was to be played on Inferno where the game went in overtime.

A very strange map to watch as the game picture fully changed after the shift from CT to T, as the two teams couldn’t contain the offensive line of each team.

In the second half, we saw some fantastic offensive plays by FPX, which delivered an offensive that Complexity couldn’t stop them.

FPX ended up winning the first half 11-4, and the map seemed to be a formality, but Complexity produced the impossible in the second half.

They came back in the game as they also won 11-4 as the T side, the game picture and Complexity seemed to have anything under control leading into the Overtime. But yet again the crazy game delivered a new highlight as FPX bulldozed Complexity in the overtime at Inferno as they won 4-0 in the overtime to make it 19-15 for FunPlus Phoenix.

At the second map on Overpass, FPX seemed to close the game as they were leading 12-8, but Complexity came back in the game yet again and ended up winning the map 16-13.

Therefore, a third and deciding map on Nuke.

Complexity got a great start as the CT side, where they delivered the best defense of the game, FPX couldn’t get through the defensive line from the European roster.

A 10-5 lead for Complexity was a great start, but as we have seen in the first map, there is always a chance of a comeback. But it didn’t come as Complexity managed to win six out of the 11 first maps and this was enough for Complexity to secure the map and game win 16-10 against FunPlus Phoenix.

Complexity – FunPlus Phoenix | IEM Summer 2021

Inferno: 15-19 | {cflag:US} RUSH – 1.61 Rating – 104.9 ADR – 38-19 K/D

Overpass: 16-13 | {cflag:ME} Maden – 1.35 Rating – 105.9 ADR – 27-21 K/D

Nuke: 16-10 | {cflag:DK} k0nfig – 1.41 Rating – 107.0 ADR – 22-15 K/D

MVP: {cflag:ME} Pavle “Maden” Boskovic – 1.28 Rating – 93.0 ADR – 80-59 K/D

Maden

FunPlus Phoenix

There was a lot of Counter-Strike to cover yesterday with the opening day at DreamHack Masters Spring.

Five aces came of Day 1, and we simply could not pick one out of the other, so we decided to include them all as our Pley of the Day.

Ace 1: {cflag:CA} Twistzz against mousesports

Ace 3: {cflag:US} RUSH against Team Vitality

Ace 4: {cflag:RU} Perfecto against Virtus.pro

Twistzz

sh1ro

Perfecto

YEKINDAR

FaZe

Natus Vincere

Virtus.pro

It is always a pleasure to get to hear some of the communication that is going on during important moments in Counter-Strike. At two of the latest BLAST events, the teams (after some discussion) allowed the tournament organizer to record the internal communication.

BLAST has now released the best of the Mic'd up moments, including the famous ninja defuse from s1mple, and also a hilarious clip with Complexity's RUSH, who discovers, that he has been turned into a meme during a match (sorry for the picture).

s1mple

The CS:GO scene has featured countless strong in-game leaders in the past, who all has brought their own individual style to the game. 

Betway Esports has sat down with the very elite of Counter-Strike to hear which IGL is the best they have played with.

	30 days	90 days
Fixture count	0	0
Maps count	0	0

RUSH

Player stats

Articles mentioning RUSH

Major winner now officially a free agent

Report: Stewie2k and RUSH to be benched in EG

RUSH: It is unacceptable the way we are playing

RUSH after exit: We don't deserve the major in our current state

New Vitality stomps new EG

Evil Geniuses finalize roster with RUSH signing

Did the Evil Geniuses CEO just confirm their new roster?

New COL Coach: With a few adjustments, we can go really far

RUSH is officially a free agent

What happened to Complexity?

Video: How an Ex-Tesla employee used science to win a Major

es3tag signs for Complexity

RUSH benched from Complexity’s starting roster

k0nfig: We are in a bad state right now

Live: Gambit vs Complexity

RUSH: If we don't show some results, I think there will be changes going forward

Complexity wins in close match against FPX!

Five aces from Day 1 - Pley of the Day

Video: The best of BLAST Mic'd up

Video: Pros Answer - Who is the best IGL you've played under?

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