Danish Counter-Strike is far from its former glory. That much is undeniable.
2024 marked a historic low, as no Danish players managed to get into HLTV’s Top 20 players of the year for the first time ever. And as it stands right now, Denmark has no team within the ten highest-ranked teams.
“Not in a good state”
It’s a grim reality, one that Nicolai “HUNDEN” Petersen also acknowledges.
We sat down with the Sashi head coach, known for having his finger on the pulse of everything related to Danish Counter-Strike.
– Danish Counter-Strike is not in a particularly good state at the moment, HUNDEN begins.
– We had HEROIC carrying the flag high for many years after things went downhill for Astralis. The problem is that no one has stepped in to take over for HEROIC after they disappeared.
A broken pipeline
When discussing the challenges facing the Danish scene, HUNDEN pointed to the lack of a well-functioning pipeline as a key issue.
– The talent pipeline is definitely missing at the moment. The Danish talent pool is in a weird place. I think there are some exciting talents, but we’re missing a stable top-20 team willing to bring them in and build on them from there.
HUNDEN elaborates:
– We’re not getting any money flow going in Danish Counter-Strike. No internal transfers are happening, so there’s no money circulating between Danish teams. For instance, br0 gets bought by Monte. That has definitely held Danish CS back as well.
– If you look at 2018 or 2019, we had strong, financially stable organizations in OpTic, North, and Astralis, who also bought players from each other. Back then, you could always look down the pipeline and say: ‘Which player do we pick up next?’. The Danish pipeline has been hit hard, and we haven’t been building it up continuously.

Screenshot from Reddit post by user Away_Active7903.
HUNDEN on Astralis and other Danish teams
Astralis is currently the only Danish roster ranked within the Top 40 in the world rankings. During our conversation, HUNDEN shared his thoughts on the state of the Danish teams.
– We have the Astralis project—maybe it’ll turn out great, maybe it won’t. It’s like they miss something. but I don’t really know what.
– Then there’s us, as the second-highest-ranked team. But we’re a project with many young players, so it will take a bit longer before we can really shine again. And then, all of a sudden, you get these strange organizations like Gaimin Gladiators and TSM picking up some mediocre Danish lineups. But it all just fell apart. That really stings, I think.
During his long career in Counter-Strike, HUNDEN has coached teams such as HEROIC, Astralis and now Sashi.
The 33-year-old is considered one of the game’s smartest minds, though his career has also been marked by several controversies.