Astralis is worth a mouthful every time they’re brought up: the team is legendary within the realm of professional Counter-Strike for being a fearsome team that can consistently end up on the champions podium, time and again regardless of climate and meta.
The organization itself, the suits that run the more mundane aspects of the team, has riled more than a few feathers in their time with rumors of exhausting schedules for players and staff alike, and a take-no-prisoners approach to negotiations that have infuriated more than a few tournament organizers in the past.
It’s safe to say, however, that Astralis are legends within their own right, so when you get the chance to join the team it’s likely difficult to shift out, even if you aren’t getting ample playtime that allows you to hone your craft and turn into a legend yourself.
This is becoming the saga of Lucas ‘Bubzjki’ Anderson that found himself scooped up by the Danish organization during a time of leave for both Gla1ve and Xyp9x; the player opted to stay on the roster although he has reportedly received offers from other teams that are more than willing to offer him a bit of playtime.
It appears as though substitutions are going to let Lucas play as a pinch-hitter for the team, the first substitution that Astralis is making partway through a match in a move that some posit is merely to silence critics that have called their ‘strategy’ into question.
Astralis has faced some withering fire for stating that they’re attempting to bring a 7-man roster in Counter-Strike where rotations between players will be frequent and specialized: once Gla1ve and Xyp9x returned, however, the players that arrived to fill the roles have all but disappeared from servers.
Today, in a decidedly one-sided stomp against FURIA for DreamHack Masters Winter 2020, Astralis let Lucas Anderson out of his bench-warming role for the second map where he shined with the rest of Astralis on FURIA’s map pick of Nuke.
The second map ended (16-6), while Astralis’s pick of Overpass found the scoreline ending at a comparable (16-7) in Astralis’ favor.
While some may believe that it shows the validity of bringing in the named ‘pinch-hitters’, for others it has continued to frustrate: some state that Lucas Anderson could do far better given more play time on a roster where he isn’t constantly overshadowed by literal juggernauts of the roster.
The validity of the claim is arguably impossible to prove, however, until Lucas manages to step away.
