How gla1ve Went from Outcast to CSGO’s Greatest In-Game Leader
Winning four Majors is no mean feat for anyone and doing it as an in-game leader perhaps makes it even more impressive. It means playing at a top level, keeping tabs on an ever evolving meta, and performing consistently.
Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander is recognized as one of the best leaders of all time, but that may not have happened as a rocky and inconsistent early career almost forced him to quit altogether. In the first four years of his career, he played under over 20 banners with one of these teams only lasting 20 days.
Gla1ve started out in CS Source, competing professionally in the title and quickly made the jump when Valve launched CS:GO in 2012. The pro quickly made it known he didn’t like how the new addition to the tactical grenades, the Molotov, worked in the early days, and campaigned to get it removed from the game with the help of fellow Dane Mathias ‘MSL’ Lauridsen.
Valve responded to this by heavily nerfing the Molotov and changing how they worked, which pleased all involved – seeing it as a great compromise. This is quite a key point, too, as tactical grenades played a huge part in how gla1ve later evolved and cracked the meta.
In late 2016, Astralis benched their IGL Finn ‘karrigan’ Andersen and looked to gla1ve to replace him. The roster had some success, but still had room for improvement. When Markus ‘Kjaerbye’ Kjærbye jumped ship to rivals North Gaming, he was replaced by Emil ‘Magisk’ Reif and there began the dominance of the greatest team Counter-Strike has ever seen.
The team have manipulated enemies and have beaten opponents with more than just superior mechanics, but with tactics and brains, which is a testament to how well Rossander performs at the helm. They picked up Major after Major in the events that followed, and the argument changed from not if they were the best, but how long they will last at the top.