Wildcard announced last night the benching of IGL Peter ‘stanislaw’ Jarguz and AWPer Love ‘phzy’ Smidebrant. The Counter-Strike world has reacted to the news with equal measures of anger and bafflement, which seemed to take even the players by surprise.
Wildcard’s roster reached new highs last year, finishing in the Elimination Stage of the Perfect World Shanghai Major. The tournament was the apotheosis of the NA team’s progress. stanislaw had joined the roster when the squad was playing ECL Challenger Leagues and ESEA Cash Cups, and had taken it to Counter-Strike’s top competitive table. Sadly, those heights did not last.
Despite qualifying for the Austin Major, the squad have struggled to gather any kind of momentum in 2025 with in-server and, seemingly, out-of-server disruption stifling their year. Despite their struggles, phzy has been a stalwart member of the roster, their top performer with a 1.13 average HLTV rating, making his removal especially surprising to fans and observers.
Wildcard players react to benching
Following the news, Stanislaw took to X to reflect and took aim at Wildcard’s management, stating, “Devastating. Invested almost two years into this project, and for it to end this way is heartbreaking. That’s esports. I wanted to rebuild my way but management had different ideas. I’m not finished with competing, especially when I was so close to being back at the top.”
The reaction sheds new light on his agent’s post on June 27th, in which stanislaw appealed to “other opportunities” including secondary calling and coaching in Europe. In retrospect, the post was writing on the wall for last night’s news.
Phzy said the move “Came as a bit of a surprise getting benched, obviously not what I wanted, but I respect the organization’s decision.” Why exactly the Swede was not aware of the organisation’s plans is unclear, and may only be reflected on when a replacement is announced.
Wildcard targeting of Peeping raises VRS concerns
Dust2.us have reported that the removal of stanislaw and phzy does not affect their interest in signing Jaxon ‘Peeping’ Cornwell for Aran ‘Sonic’ Groesbeek. Wildcard have been linked with Peeping for months, with Sonic remarking to HLTV that the move was destabilising to his trust of the org and team.
As VRS requires a three-player ‘core’ to attach rank to, removing three players from the roster would effectively mean Wildcard would have to start from scratch in Valve Rankings, a move that would set the roster back months.
“Dropping your IGL, dropping your high-rated AWPer, and also tanking your VRS points borderline, without context, and without knowing who they are signing, sounds like they’re actively trying to kill their roster.”
Erik ‘fl0m’ Flom, former CS pro, streamer and Mythic owner
Where could stanislaw go?
NA IGLs are not exactly a dime a dozen. With the Canadian asserting his desire to continue to compete, stanislaw might get access to some interesting offers from existing rosters, or may perhaps be the perfect foundation to build around for something new.
With the potential entry of Sentinels and Envy into the Counter-Strike NA scene, Dustin ‘dusT’ Mouret put forth the idea of stanislaw being the bedrock for those rosters, stating, “If I’m Envy or Sentinels, and I’m truly coming back to NA CS, I’m calling stanislaw yesterday.”
Counter-Strike community’s reaction to Wildcard roster moves
NA community perplexed by move
American stage/desk host Mike ‘DarfMike’ Winnick was completely perplexed by the move, saying “I have absolutely no idea what Wildcard is going to look like next season.”
“In-game leading is the most thankless job” – Bobby ‘stamina’ Eitrem laments stanislaw decision
Stage Host and Casters confused by “shocking” phzy removal
Darragh Harbinson is an esports writer specialising in Counter-Strike. He has written for Esports News UK, Esports Insider, UKCSGO, Dexerto, and Rush B Media.
