New Astralis coach ave to guide team at BLAST Premier Fall Final

Alexander ‘ave’ Holdt, Astralis’ newly appointed CS:GO coach, will make his first appearance with the team at the BLAST Premier Fall Final, Dexerto has confirmed.

The 33-year-old was installed as Astralis’ new CS:GO coach on November 4 as a replacement for Danny ‘⁠zonic⁠’ Sørensen, who is leaving the organization at the end of the year.

In the announcement, Astralis said that ave would join the team “soonest possible”, raising doubts as to whether the new coach would be with the team at the BLAST Premier Fall Final.

Contacted by Dexerto, the Danish organization confirmed that ave will be part of Astralis’ squad for the event, where Benjamin ’blameF⁠’ Bremer and Kristian ‘⁠k0nfig⁠’ Wienecke will also make their first appearance with the team.

Ave returns to coaching

This is ave’s first coaching stint since April 2019, when he left North after two years with the organization. Initially hired as an analyst and academy team coach, he took charge of North’s main team in early 2018, guiding them to victory at the DreamHack Open events in Tours and Valencia, and at DreamHack Masters Stockholm.

The 33-year-old was widely regarded as one of the finest in-game leaders in CS 1.6. He played alongside zonic on the iconic mTw lineup that dominated the scene in 2008, when it won KODE5, ESWC Masters of Paris, World eSports Masters, and World Cyber Games.

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Astralis will take on NIP in their opening match at the BLAST Premier Fall Final, on November 24. There will be debutants on both sides as NIP will be playing their first match with Patrick ‘es3tag’ Hansen, who was signed from Complexity after the Swedish team crashed out of PGL Major Stockholm in the quarter-finals.