CS2 News Roundup: Spirit On Top, Rating 3.0, FaZe Change

It has been a busy few weeks in the world of Counter-Strike. Tournaments, roster moves, and updates have come and gone, and the landscape of our beautiful game has continued to become more and more interesting. It has also been a little while since our last news roundup, so there’s quite a bit to catch up on. Let’s jump into another quick recap of the salient points of recent CS2 news, so you can stay as informed as possible.

Rating 3.0 introduced

Starting off with some nerdy stuff! HLTV has announced their new Rating 3.0 system. This will be a very brief summary, so go check out their article covering the minutiae if you’re interested. Essentially, this new rating system is designed to be a more accurate representation of actual impact, rather than purely frags.

There is a new factor in this rating system – Round Swing. Using HLTV’s own words, this is “a metric that looks at a team’s win probability before and after each kill with knowledge of the map, side, and economy of each round.” So, now, the number you see for a player’s individual rating will reflect the tangible impact they had on a game, rather than purely their K/D. Exciting times to be an anchor!

Spirit on top (and making a change)

It’s a great time to be a Team Spirit fan! The Russian organization have won both IEM Cologne 2025 and BLAST Bounty S2 in recent weeks, with Danil “donk” Kryshkovets and co. absolutely farming in the server. A little while ago, Spirit made a change to the roster that some found surprising – replacing longtime soldier Boris “magixx” Vorobyev with Ivan “zweih” Gogin. It was with this roster that they found both of the aforementioned titles at the start of the second season of the year.

Now, there is another change on the horizon for Team Spirit. It looks like Myroslav “zont1x” Plakhotja is set to be moved to the bench, with Andrey “tN1R” Tatarinovich ready to take his place. Whilst it seems like poor timing, as Spirit appear to have made their return to the very top, it could be the aggressive change they need to really cement their place as the team to beat throughout the second half of the year.

FaZe make a change

After a seriously underwhelming season in which FaZe struggled to make deep runs and looked inconsistent throughout the year, the Finn “karrigan” Andersen-led squad has made a change to their active roster. Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski has been moved to the bench and has been replaced with young Polish prospect Jakub “jcobbb” Pietruszewski.

EliGE’s time on FaZe has been an interesting one. Whilst the team didn’t find the success they doubtless had been hoping for, the NA legend managed to find some consistency in his performance, specifically on T-Sides.

As for jcobbb, he joins FaZe after an impressive run on Betclic Apogee in which he posted good numbers consistently. It remains to be seen whether this drastic change will work out for FaZe. The community sentiment seems divided. The last time FaZe picked up a relatively unknown rookie for their roster, it was the Latvian Lazer, Helvijs “broky” Saukants, who went on to find unprecedented success with the team. Will lightning strike twice, or are there more changes to the FaZe Clan roster on the horizon?

MongolZ get their gold

It finally happened! After so many deep runs and near misses in the last few months, The MongolZ took home their first Tier 1 trophy at the Esports World Cup. Beating GamerLegion, 3DMAX, Vitality, and Aurora in their playoffs run, and bolstered by an MVP performance from Sodbayar ‘Techno’ Munkhbold, the Mongolian squad were unstoppable right through to the end.

After a 3rd-4th place finish at IEM Dallas 2025 and two 2nd-place finishes at the BLAST Austin Major and BLAST Bounty Season 2 Finals, respectively, this victory finally ties up the conversation of whether or not Garidmagnai “bLitz” Byambasuren and co. are truly a top-tier team, or whether they’re something of a gatekeeper team in the playoffs. This year, so far, has been the story of The MongolZ getting closer and closer to brushing off the woes of playoff choking, and with this victory, it’s safe to say that that particular mission has been accomplished.

3DMAX transfer leadership duties

This will only be a short one, but it’s interesting nonetheless. 3DMAX have made a change to their roles, whilst keeping their roster the same. The French team have made Filip “⁠Graviti⁠” Brankovic their IGL, taking the calling duties away from Bryan “Maka” Canda. In an interview with HLTV, Lucas “Lucky” Chastang seemed hopeful that this change will allow Maka to shine within the roster moving forward.

BC.GOAT

How could we finish a roundup of some of the most important news in Counter-Strike from the past weeks without taking a moment to talk about the GOAT of CS:GO? In a move that surprised almost everyone, BC.Game has added Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev to their main roster. The legendary sniper looks set to grind it out Tier 2, getting a feel for the professional scene again, and proving to potential Tier 1 teams that he’s worth picking up.

At the time of writing, s1mple is performing very well, with his HLTV stats for the duration of his time in BC.Game being almost entirely positive. It’s an exciting prospect for so many reasons. His teammates get the experience of playing with the GOAT. His Tier 2 enemies get the chance to play against him, and CS fans get to see s1mple back on the server. Counter-Strike is simply better when s1mple is playing and, for that, we tip our hat to BC.Game.

So, there you have it. You’ve been caught up on some of the most important bits of news from the last few weeks. Of course, if you’re more interested in the grind than the news, you can check out our Utility Secrets series, learn how to play your role, or jump into a Refrag Coach routine!