In July, The Last Resort signed its most ambitious roster to date on a six-month deal. The roster would go on to attend EPIC.LAN 45 under TLR’s brand, giving fresh attention and content creation potential to the org, but the venture was short-lived.
Nicolas ‘Keoz’ Dgus, Thomas ‘birdfromsky’ Due Frederiksen, and Johannes ‘b0RUP’ Borup have now departed to the Ukrainian org, kONO.ECF following the triggering of their buyouts.
Esports News UK understands that the Ukrainian org, co-founded and owned by former Ukrainian international footballer, Yevhen Konoplyanka, approached the organisation regarding the players shortly after EPIC.LAN 45. The event’s VRS impact significantly improved the ranking of the team, making them an attractive target for the Ukrainian org.
Despite their somewhat disappointing 7th-8th finish in the competition, being eliminated by UK top dogs NXT (now Hawaii), the roster gained 111 VRS points as a result of the competition, moving them from #157 in the live VRS rank to #115, or #76 in Europe.
As a result of the interest, kONO triggered the buyout clause of the core of the roster, facilitating their transfer. Despite the financial boon, the organisation was disappointed to not be able to continue the project and build on what was a successful LAN from a business perspective.
Continuation of the project would have allowed TLR to grow its profile in EU online tournaments, while creating content around future LANs. The Last Resort’s deal with the roster would have seen it returning to LANs, including EPIC, had the roster stuck together in the org. Instead, the org is now left with an uncertain future regarding its CS2 roster.
How did The Last Resort buyout occur?
Esports News UK understands that TLR attempted to negotiate the sale of the entire roster in order to maintain the full team at its new destination. Selling all five players would have led to a different buyout clause being triggered for the org. Keoz explained his team’s arrangement with the org at EPIC 45 to ENUK, stating:
“Basically, TheLastResort are helping us to go to different LAN tournaments. We are not getting paid any salaries. It’s just for the LAN expenses.
“Besides that, we have a really small buyout that can either be bought or we can buy by ourselves if one of our players wants to leave or the whole team has a buyout, a different price, but also not a lot, just to put some security on the side of TLR.”
An agreement regarding all five players could not be reached; therefore, the individual buyouts for the three departed players were triggered instead.
kONO instead opted to keep Arsenyi ‘cptkurtka023’ Derevynskyi and bolster the roster with AWPer Denys ‘Burmylov’ Buraha. Burmylov was highly rated at MOUZ NXT, but the step up to Fnatic proved to be too high a task, with the Ukrainian never finding his footing. He can now hope to build up from a lower level with k0N0.
The roster will be coached by Gustavo ‘Juve’ Alexandre. Juve is a familiar face to UK CS fans as the long-term coach behind Into The Breach’s miraculous Paris Major run.
After losing the core of the roster, the org is left with two players on the books: Arek ‘Vegi’ Nawojski and AWPer Jonathan ‘b0denmaster’ Bodenmalm. In the VRS system, rank is attached to the ‘core’ of the team, effectively three of the five players.
This means Vegi and b0denmaster would either have to start from scratch with a new roster or attach themselves to an existing core, leaving their futures uncertain.
With the season already underway, The Last Resort is faced with limited options regarding a new team, but ENUK understands that the organisation is considering a return to its UK CS roots.
kONO are now:
Arseniy ‘cptkurtka023’ Derevinskiy
Denys ‘Burmylov’ Buraga
Nicolas ‘Keoz’ Dgus
Johannes ‘b0RUP’ Borup
Thomas ‘birdfromsky’ Due-Frederiksen
The Last Resort are now:
Arek ‘Vegi’ Nawojski
Jonathan ‘b0denmaster’ Bodenmalm
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.