Britain’s Oscar ‘AZUWU’ Bell has joined Monte on a permanent basis, following his release from SAW in June. AZUWU joins up with fellow Brit Jack ‘Gizmy’ von Spreckelsen, who has been IGLing the international roster since last September.
Monte currently sits at #72 in HLTV’s live model of the VRS, with the roster primarily competing in tier two and three online competition, with mixed results in 2025. The organisation will look to push up the rankings and close in on those valuable Major positions now that they have a settled roster.
AZUWU was announced to be on the roster alongside Aurélien ‘afro’ Drapier and Aurimas ‘Bymas’ Pipiras, who have played officials as the roster over recent weeks.
AZUWU and SAW
AZUWU can now look to push on competitively after an unsuccessful period in SAW. AZUWU’s arrival at SAW followed a period of internal discord, which saw coach Danny ‘BERRY’ Krüger, and players Michel ‘ewjerkz’ Pinto and Rafael ‘arrozdoce’ Wing leave.
Despite the brief international experiment with former Endpoint pairing AZUWU and Jan ‘cej0t’ Dyl joining, SAW reneged on that particular path, returning to a full Portuguese roster in June.
Playing only 42 HLTV maps in the period, neither AZUWU nor cej0t truly got off the ground at SAW, which was a step up competitively for both of the young guns who arguably were not give a chance to find their footing during a difficult period for the organisation.
While the period was unsuccessful, AZUWU now goes into Monte with valuable tier one experience, having attended ESL Pro League Season 21, IEM Melbourne, and the BLAST.tv Austin Major EU MRQ with SAW.
afro and Bymas permanently join Monte
afro and Bymas were announced alongside AZUWU; however, both had been playing for Monte on a stand-in basis from April and June, respectively. afro, 26, joins permanently after a strong period of individual performances for Monte.
The former Fnatic and LDLC AWPer is averaging a 1.14 HLTV rating in 2025, making him one of the most performant AWPers in tier two.
Bymas was part of the Lithuania roster that unexpectedly won the IESF European Esports Championship in Kosovo, upsetting Kosovo (former Bad News Eagles roster), Germany (BIG’s roster core), and Ukraine (TNL roster).
Now with the roster set with a mixture of young and experienced talent, Monte can look forward to stabilising a season that has been plagued with uncertainty and middling results.
The Ukrainian organisation are currently playing CCT Season 3 Europe Series 4 Closed Qualifiers, with their now full roster.
Darragh Harbinson is an esports writer specialising in Counter-Strike. He has written for Esports News UK, Esports Insider, UKCSGO, Dexerto, and Rush B Media.