Category: CS:GO

Welcome to hREDS, LYNXI!

After Samu “Samppa” Kylmälä stepped down from the active roster, hREDS has been looking for a replacement to complement our new dynamic as Mikko “xartE” Välimaa will become the IGL. To properly do so, we needed to find a new AWP player that met the standards of the rest of the team. The market for such a Finnish player is small as people know, but we had not taken into consideration a man who just came back from his military duty in the Finnish army.

This is where Topi “LYNXI” Kauppi steps in. Ending his tenure in the Finnish defense forces just two days prior he started playing in the roster. At first as a stand-in so we would have the possibility to try and reach the ESEA Advanced playoffs. “My perspective on life has changed a bit now that the military training is done and I think something will also transmit to my playing career”, says Kauppi.

It became clear from the very get-go that Topi’s skills had not dulled and the rest of the team wanted to sign him straight then and there. “We are coming out of the pandemic and want to really step up our game. This is why I am happy LYNXI considered us first and we could sign him for the rest of 2021”, says Christer Kasurinen, the GM or hREDS organization.

“The roster has huge potential and especially now that xartE is getting back to the IGL role, combined with the young talent that is craving for his teachings, I think we will be able to accomplish something special here at the later stages of 2021″ Kauppi adds.

Thank you Samppa.

Together with the player, hREDS is announcing the benching of Samu “Samppa” Kylmälä from our active roster. Samppa was a big part of the organization during his tenure from late 2019 all the way through the pandemic and we want to wish him all the best in his future endeavors. Samppa is now free to look for new opportunities and no contract obligations will hold him down if he chooses to move to a new project.

“Thank you Samppa for all the hard work and effort in a very demanding IGL role”, Christer Kasurinen, General Manager, hREDS

Introducing hREDS Academy

This one has been a long time coming and finally, we can shed some light on how our CS:GO youth program is going forwards in 2021.

The original players from our 2019 beginner course have continued to develop and wanted to continue playing together. At the end of 2020 we decided to bring them back together for that, with the exception of the world pandemic situation, they would start their journey safely from their homes and work on their progress delaying it no longer.

It became really apparent from the get-go that players would start needing more outside competitive play and we moved forward with the Academy initiative that had been brewing with Mikael “sotsi” Reenpää for quite some time already.

This been said, here is our first ever competitive Academy roster for the upcoming spring:

Viktor “Vikke” Kulmala
Joel “Joel” Kuhlberg
Nicolas ”mejak” Reenpää
Eero “WeeRo” Weckström
Kalle “hevosmies” Kainulainen

We have plenty of more to tell you about our youngsters and what they will do next so stay tuned in our social media channels!


Nuorisotoiminta startattu!

Maailmantilanteesta riippumatta olemme vihdoin päässeet hetkeen jossa voimme ilolla todeta, että pitkään suunniteltu nuorisotoimintamme, joka alkoi jo 2019 pilotilla on jälleen lähtenyt käyntiin.

Tällä kertaa ryhmiä on kolme. Kaksi näistä keskittyy uusiin kilpapelaamisesta kiinnostuneisiin nuoriin kun taas kolmas ryhmä pitää sisällään ensimmäisen kurssimme parhaimmistoa, jotka ovat jatkamassa tekemistä haastavammilla harjoitteilla.

Alkeiskurssit on rakennettu niin, että pelaajat pelaavat toisiaan vastaan omilla pelipalvelimillamme tehden samalla valmentajien osoittamia harjoituksia omantasoisessa ryhmässä. Iloksemme voimme todeta, että ensimmäiset harjoituspäivät ovat startanneet todella hyvin ja ryhmäytymistä on jo havaittu pelaajien keskuudessa.

Jatkokurssi tuntuu myös onnistuneen hyvin. Aluksi tottuminen etäyhteyksiin, livenä näkemisen sijaan oli haastavaa, mutta hyvä pohja jonka pelaajat rakensivat GLHF tiloissa vuodenvaihteessa 2019-2020 näkyy myös nyt vuotta myöhemmin pelipalvelimilla.

Vaikka vielä emme tiedä maailmantilanteesta kurssien jälkeen on jo nyt jatkoa suunniteilla. Kysymys kuuluu enää tuleeko tekeminen jatkumaan etänä vai päästäänkö takaisin liveympäristöihin.

hREDSin nuorisotoimintaa tukevat pitkäaikaiset yhteistyökumppanimme Telia ja OMEN.

hREDS CS:GO 2021

As one door closes, another opens and that is just what our CS:GO roster will experience going forward. For some, it is time to hop off the roster, and others a time to start climbing the ladder. With a good end of the year behind them, the boys are back and hungry after a short break. They start their training today as this article will be released.

The core of the team will be making a return for 2021 with the exception of Pasi “VORMISTO” Koskinen leaving the roster to pursue his studies and career IRL. Pasi will stay with the organization as a guiding pair of eyes who will from time to time give his input on the development of the roster.

Mikael “Sotsi” Reenpää will also continue in the organization with the youth program, but will not be part-taking in the rosters day to day operations as of now. We would like to thank Miksu for his hard effort during the second half of 2020.

To introduce a new player to the active team, we are more than happy to welcome Joona “Sm1llee” Holmström to the organization. Joona went through a rigorous try-out period before the Christmas break and we are more than eager to see how he develops during the next year. Eetu “eDi” Astikainen remains as the last player from the original roster and will be taking a bigger role in the team with him losing the junior spot to Sm1llee.

The roster will have its first official game experience this week already as the Elisa Nordic Championship Finland starts on Friday with the group. We have an interesting year ahead of us. Stay tuned for the #hREDSCSGO2021

Afterthoughts: Esea Advanced Season 35

The ESEA Advanced season 35 is over and what a season it was. Few afterthoughts from the GM Kasurinen and how he saw the season unfold.

Before the season start, we were coming off a dry streak of sorts as bringing in new players always can either have a boosting effect on performance or then you need to adjust to the changes. The team was going through the latter one and was a bit shaky early on.

Starting off the season we had a normal start and the first 3 games seemed to go as planned as we lost to Project X, which at the time was deemed “not fun, but something you would expect” kinda loss. Scrims were going smoothly and everything clicked, but then something happened and during a span of 1 week, we managed to take 3 losses against our own level teams as we dropped to the ball versus Wizards Club, ECLOT, and Vexed Gaming.

Some might have started to wait for a new season with a record of 2-4 from our first six games, but it was at that moment something really interesting happened. As players age, they tend to start developing manners of tightening their game as the odds get stacked against you and it was here that Mikko “xartE” Välimaa and Pasi “VORMISTO” Koskinen took it upon themselves to carry the team over the hard stretch of not being allowed almost any losses in the last 10 matches.

With a two win streak we managed (once again) to drop the ball against our finnish rival Kova Esports and it started to look that a record of 4-5 was not going to cut it to reach the playoffs.

The team though was not keen on letting the end of 2020 slip by their hands and started to dig even deeper into the tactics side of things and managed to pull off a 5 game winning streak with the newly gained vigor from that time. Still lead by the veterans, even the younger players adapted to the new playstyle, and results followed.

It was the game against Tenerife Titans that ensured us the 15th spot that we still barely clinched going into the playoffs. We were down by 3-12 in the first half of the game (Terrorist side) and somehow managed to reverse our CT side with the same results, making it to overtime barely. It took 3 overtimes to get the game under our wings and we ended it with a 25-23 record. Match MVP as earlier was xartE who recorded a whopping 42 kills, 1 ACE, 1 4k, 88 enemies flashed (34% of whole teams flashes), and a promising ADR of 88,15 which by any standard is a good number for such a long game.

It was not just our own goodness that got us to the playoffs, but we managed to pull off a greater later half of the season, with the knife on our throats, which shows good signs of things to come.

As expected, we fell in the first round to Lyngby Vikings and took our spot in the lower bracket where the actual magic started happening. At this point, we knew that going up against The Dice looked easier than it was. A promising french lineup that had almost exactly the same map pool as we did and it could rotate either way. This being the case, we were relieved to come out of it on top with the end score of 2-1.

Making it to the next round, the roster started realizing that we still had more juice to go with and that there was elements of surprise we could use against Project X, a team we had lost to in the earlier rounds of the season, and who had won the whole series. And so it was that on a rainy November evening we beat an opponent we “should have not beaten” with a clear 2-0 and the maps even were not that tight, making the team realize that we can if we set our mindset where it should be.

Making top 8 was an achievement on its own, but one always starts to get more hungry when an opportunity to get to the MDL qualifiers presents itself and the roster started pushing for top 6 and this is where our season ended. With a seemingly more easy team with Budapest 5 compared to Project X we overthought our strategy and fell to an opponent pretty much like The Dice (same map pool as us), but with better individuals to execute them.

All and all the experience of ESEA Advanced 35 was a good one for us, setting the tone for future tournaments and 2021. We now know even better what parts of our game we need to practise and develop more and now that we are showing improvement in international games, the players are hungrier than ever to break into the bigger scene and start climbing the HLTV ladder.

hREDS CS:GO to ESEA Advanced Playoffs

ESEA Advanced Season 35 has concluded and we are happy to announce that we made it to the playoff stage in the EU region.

The start of the season was a hard one for us, but we managed to pull through after 3 games losing streak against Wizards, Vexed Gaming, and ECLOT. With the added confidence boost brought in by the experienced Mikko “xartE” Välimaa, the team was able to pull off few nice upsets over higher ranked opponents.

The deciding factor on the season’s success was the five-game winning streak late in the season versus Aalborg Rebels, Enable, Gaminate, Smoke Criminals and Tenerife Titans.

The arrival of our newly aquired Olli “oopee” Piispanen also added to the offensive value of the roster providing hard, continuos performance throughout the series with hard clutches when they were needed.