Strife, a professional CS:GO team in North America, has made an abrupt roster change amid an ESL Challenger League season 40 series against MIBR.

The team cut Danny “cxzi” Strzelczyk after a 16-5 defeat on Overpass, the first map of the matchup. The 21-year-old rifler had one of the worst individual performances of his career, having ended the map with a 5-17 K/D ratio, 39.3 ADR, and a disastrous 0.45 rating, according to HLTV’s statistics. Strife called Austin “AAustiN” Urb as an emergency stand-in, but it wasn’t enough to avoid the loss on Dust II (16-6). The roster change was announced by the casters, who were shocked to hear it.

Moving forward, however, it’s not AAustiN who’ll take cxzi’s place in the active lineup. AAustiN will finish the ESL Challenger League season, but Bobby “stamina” Eitrem, one of the Strife players, told Dust2.us that the team is set to add Matthew “D4rtyMontana” Paplawskas as the new fifth player. The move will see him join the squad permanently after having stood-in for Strife at Mythic Winter Cup two in early 2022.

This unlikely turn of events comes just 10 days after Strife surprised just about everyone and won Fragadelphia, a LAN event in Philadelphia, United States, beating teams such as Team oNe and Apeks Rebels on their way to the title. Cxzi was one of the team’s pillars during the tournament, having finished it with a solid 1.13 rating across 12 maps, according to HLTV.

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