Astralis have announced that they have named Filip "NEO" Kubski the new head coach of their Counter-Strike team following last month's dismissal of Casper "ruggah" Due.
NEO had been without a job since March, when he was let go by FaZe after a nearly three-year-long association. He won four notable trophies while with the team, including IEM Sydney 2023 and IEM Chengdu 2024, and guided them to the Major finals in Copenhagen, Shanghai and Budapest.
The 39-year-old inherits a team that has struggled for form since a runner-up finish at PGL Bucharest in April. Astralis ended the season on a disappointing note, going out of IEM Cologne Stage 2 with a 1-3 record following losses to 9z, TYLOO and paiN.
“Astralis has been on top of the Counter-Strike game for a long time, and the brand is still legendary," NEO said in a statement.
"Going international hasn’t made the task in front of this group easy, and that’s exactly what makes it interesting, especially after the promising results they’ve already shown."
NEO added that another reason he agreed to take on this new challenge was the chance to work alongside Urszula "Xirreth" Klimczak, who steps in as performance coach.
She spent nearly three years with Natus Vincere, working with both the organization's Counter-Strike and VALORANT rosters, and before that, with CLG and ENCE.
“To me, this is an investment in the future," Astralis CEO Jonas Gundersen said. "It comes down to a core philosophy: Winning in the long run requires a deeply rooted culture that runs through the entire organization.
"With these two bringing both the past and the present of what it takes to build that culture, I believe we can, over time, build one of the healthiest and most stable performance cultures out there.
"That’s exactly what we aspire to be — an organization built for the future, one that trusts the process over immediate results.”
Astralis will make their first appearance under NEO later this month in Stage 1 of BLAST Bounty Season 2, in which 32 teams will duke it out for eight spots at the LAN finals.
With NEO's unveiling, Astralis are now:
Rasmus "HooXi" Nielsen Love "phzy" Smidebrant Jakob "jabbi" Nygaard Victor "Staehr" Staehr Gytis "ryu" Glušauskas
Filip "NEO" Kubski (coach)
Gytis 'ryu' Glušauskas
Natus Vincere
Aleksi 'Aleksib' Virolainen
Mihai 'iM' Ivan
Valeriy 'b1t' Vakhovskiy
Ihor 'w0nderful' Zhdanov
Drin 'makazze' Shaqiri
Andrey 'B1ad3' Gorodenskiy
Jakob 'jabbi' Nygaard
CLG
FaZe
David 'frozen' Čerňanský
Russel 'Twistzz' Van Dulken
Jakub 'jcobbb' Pietruszewski
Jason 'JBOEN' Boe Nielsen
Niclas 'enkay J' Krumhorn
Filip 'NEO' Kubski
TYLOO
Yi 'JamYoung' Yang
Dongkai 'Jee' Ji
Jingxiang 'Mercury' Wang
Qianhao 'Moseyuh' Chen
Su 'Zero' Jingshen
WeiJie 'zhokiNg' Zhong
paiN
Vinicius 'vsm' Moreira
Rodrigo 'biguzera' Bittencourt
Guilherme 'piriajr' Barbosa
Rafael 'saffee' Costa
João 'snow' Vinicius
Henrique 'rikz' Waku
Casper 'ruggah' Due
9z
Maximiliano 'max' Gonzalez
Franco 'dgt' Garcia
Ignacio 'meyern' Meyer
Luciano 'luchov' Herrera
Matias 'HUASOPEEK' Ibañez Hernandez
Bruno 'BIT' Fukuda Lima
Victor 'Staehr' Staehr
Rasmus 'HooXi' Nielsen
Love 'phzy' Smidebrant
Astralis
Rasmus 'HooXi' Nielsen
Love 'phzy' Smidebrant
Jakob 'jabbi' Nygaard
Victor 'Staehr' Staehr
Gytis 'ryu' Glušauskas
ENCE
Henri 'HENU' Ylilehto
Aleksi 'millert' Lehtopuu
Teemu 'teme' Korva
Niki 'Cliqq' Kinnunen
Giorgi 'Schwarz' Gakhokidze
Aleksi 'allu' Jalli