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GR Gaming have waved goodbye to the Counter-Strike division on Saturday, just two weeks after an early exit from Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024: Asia-Pacific RMR.
The disbandment sees the end of GR Gaming’s involvement in the Counter-Strike esports scene, which the Hong Kongese organisation was a part of since March 2020.
Competing mainly in lesser C-tier tournaments, GR Gaming has fielded several different Counter-Strike esports roster iterations over the last four years, consisting mostly of Russian players.
Unfortunately today we are parting ways with our CS2 roster. All of us are grateful for the time we were able to spend together and wish you the best of luck in your future career 🧡🧡🧡 pic.twitter.com/3gyUJTzFWR
— GR Gaming (@GRGamingGRG) November 30, 2024
However, GR Gaming has never reached the higher echelons, lingering around no.100 spot in the global Counter-Strike rankings. That nearly changed in November when the Russian lineup attended Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024: Asia-Pacific RMR.
After successfully making it through the East Asian Qualifier in August, with victories against Nomads, ATOX Esports, and Chinggis Warriors, GR Gaming had a shot at reaching their first LAN event.
Unfortunately, Arkadii “SALO_MUX” Balanda could not deliver against Asia’s elite and suffered an early exit from the RMR, with losses against Rare Atom and FlyQuest.
Just days after the RMR, GR Gaming announced the departure of Pyak “7nation” Gil En due to health issues.
Since then, the team appeared at MESA Asia Series #2 with coach Vladislav “Sange” Tsyuan as a stand-in but again failed to show anything, exiting the event in last place with defeats against SayGGTeam and The Huns Esports.
Despite reaching their peak #91 ranking in the global Counter-Strike ladder earlier this month, GR Gaming decided to pull the plug on their CS division and released the entire lineup, including Oleg “weqt2” Pranenko, Roman “mediocrity” Stetsenko, Arkadii “SALO_MUX” Balanda, Viktor “Runnin” Chernenko, and Sūleimen “dukefissura” Orazaly.
With the disbandment of the Counter-Strike team, GR Gaming no longer fields an esports division after pulling the plug on their VALORANT roster in 2021.
