After a hectic start to our Counter-Strike 2 season, it's time to sit down, recap the first few weeks of action, and see what’s coming next.
Recap
After bringing in our new Head Coach, Aleksi “allu” Jalli, in early June, the team began building a new way of working and retooling their old habits before heading on summer vacation.
When the much-needed break was over in early July, the team gathered for a bootcamp at the ENCE HQ for a week to kickstart the season and build a fresh set of tactics and fundamentals.
The first real test for the team was at Assembly Summer 2026, which featured an open VRS tournament, Elisa Breakout Series 1. It featured 8 teams, of which 7 came from Finland, and the eighth team was s1mple’s BCG. The group stage was flawless, with wins over BOJONG, Sinqu, and Kuusamo. While the latter two games were mostly under the team's control throughout on Cache (13-9) and Inferno (13-7), the first match of the day against BOJONG on Mirage (16-12) proved to be the toughest. Thanks to individual heroics, especially from Schwarz, the team managed to push the game to overtime from a deficit and went on to play a flawless 4-0 during the extra rounds.
Credit: Petri Leppävuori / Assembly
With the team winning their group, we were set to play a semi-final match against HAVU, a classic Finnish matchup, who took second place in their group after a nail-biter in their last group stage match against Rounds on Nuke (16-13).
The best-of-3 series saw our team beat HAVU in 2 maps: Cache (13-10) and Anubis (13-9). On both maps, the team had the game under control for the most part, but late surges from HAVU gave them opportunities to come back. HENU was the star of the series, with multiple multikill rounds throughout. He ended the match with an impressive 1.79 HLTV rating and 106 ADR.
The final opponent was an expected faceoff, with BCG routinely making their way through the tournament. The team went into it as a heavy underdog, but gave BCG a great fight throughout the series. In front of an approximately 1500 live audience on Assembly's main stage, the team lost a close match on Mirage (11-13) and Nuke (13-16). It was individual brilliance from BCG’s players, such as the Mongolian duo mzinho and Senzu, that proved to be too much for the team to handle.
Credit: Petri Leppävuori / Assembly
Overall, Elisa Breakout Series 1 was a positive experience, and the team met its goal by making the grand finals. While it was still disappointing to come out with a loss in the final, especially after such a close match, we most importantly acquired 4 LAN wins to our VRS ranking. That will help us build momentum for the future.
“After a lot of hard work, we got to test our level at the Elisa BreakOut Series. The goal was to make it to the final, which we managed to do with a relatively clean run, apart from the initial nerves in the first game.
We also put up a really strong fight against BC.Game, and the opportunities to win were in our own hands. It’s usually difficult to be happy or satisfied with a loss, but it was great to see how we handled the final mentally in such a big tournament for us, against multiple Major winners and finalists.
We’ve only been together for a short while, but we performed really well.”
- Aleksi “allu” Jalli, ENCE CS2 head coach
Credit: Veli-Matti Lammentausta / Assembly
What’s next
While we are happy with our recent results, we also believe that continued development means challenging ourselves and avoiding stagnation. As stated before, our goal is to keep on testing and exploring different options to find the best possible roster and team dynamics for the future.
As part of that process, the ex- Young Ninjas prospect, Joe “joeski” Holmes, will join the team on a tryout basis through the end of August. Meanwhile, Niki “Cliqq” Kinnunen will step aside from the active lineup for the duration of this trial. This will give us an opportunity to evaluate the lineup across the upcoming tournaments and see how the new combination performs in official matches.
After the trial, we will take time to properly evaluate the results and make decisions on the lineup afterward.
“We are still in the early stages of building the foundation of our new, young Main Roster, and we want to make sure we explore every possible option. With the chance to bring in a player of joeski’s caliber for a tryout, we believe it makes sense to take the time to see whether he could be the right fit for the team. There is no need to rush the process, and we will make a final decision over the coming weeks.”
- Eemeli “Woomera” Ikonen, ENCE General Manager
Article featured image credit: Veli-Matti Lammentausta / Assembly