The announcement by Ninjas in Pyjamas (NiP) organisation has confirmed that Patrick “es3tag” Hansen will replace Hampus “hampus” Poser as Captain of the team. This announcement was made on the official NiP CS2 team Twitter account.
es3tag has returned to activity on the roster after 10 months of inactivity. Hansen has confirmed that he will search for new challenges in CS2 and consider various options. No reported teams have yet been connected to where Hansen may play.
While the NiP team update has been overshadowed by the dramatic changes happening to Heroic. It is important to understand that es3tag has been an essential part of NiP between November 2021 and December 2022. The team participated in a lot of competitions during this time where the main achievements were a final of IEM Winter 2021, top 4 at ESL Pro League Season 15 and first place at Global Esports Tour 2022.
This might look like a boost to NiP in CS2, so those who are betting on the team will now want to carefully check their performance. The next scheduled match they have is against Fnatic online for the Roobet Cup 2023. This will be a tough game for them but will immediately be an indicator of how they perform at a tier 1 level with the return of es3tag.
NiP’s CS2 Roster
The full roster for NiP can be seen below. They are currently participating in the Roobet Cup 2023 and will soon participate in CS2 Asia Championship 2023 that is taking place in November.
- Daniil “headtr1ck” Valitov
- Ludwig “Brollan” Brolin
- Fredrik “REZ” Sterner
- Christian “k0nfig” Vinicke
- Patrick “es3tag” Hansen
Apart from BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2023, NiP’s CS2 team have not had an amazing result since 2022. Fans will want to know if their form is returning. Especially with a busy remaining event calendar for 2023.
