$ 2,100,000 per player or "How bought Cloud9 es3tag from Astralis"

Recently it became known that Patrick 'es3tag' Hansen became a character in the play about the most expensive ransom of an esports player in CS: GO. In terms of the media component, of course, we could observe more striking examples, but here the financial factor is primarily remarkable.

Cloud9, who became famous as Lannisters in the CS: GO world and were ready to spend money left and right, once again took out their fat wallet and emptied it a little in favor of their shooter discipline roster. Initially, the parties to the transaction decided not to disclose the details of the concluded agreement and informed the community about the final result - es3tag will represent the colors of Cloud9. Shortly on his Twitter account, Cloud9 manager Henry 'HenryG' Greer revealed that the Danish rising star cost the club $ 2,100,000. According to insiders' assumptions Astralis have $ 500,000 from this deal, and the rest of the amount was entered into the player's contract in the "salary" column, which he will receive over the next three years.

Why did the Dane become so valuable that the Americans decided to give such money for him? Let's get in a time machine and head straight to 2015, where Patrick Hansen's career began.

es3tag started its career as a professional CS: GO player in 2015 and has played in various teams and mixes without much success. The player received the first more or less significant trophy under the banner of Escape Gaming in 2016, when he won the Uprise Champions Cup Season 4. The team then received a lot of $ 25,000. It is noteworthy that then he played in a team on a trial basis and Patrick did not pass the tests. After that he came to Tricked, played there for 9 months and joined the first serious team for himself, Heroic. Together with them, the esportsman made his way through the European qualifiers for ELEAGUE CS: GO Premier 2017, a championship with a prize pool of $ 1,000,000. However, he did not achieve success there and took 5th-8th place. Nevertheless, reaching the playoffs of such a tournament can also be considered a good performance. In 2018, the Heroic management decided to release the esports player from his duties to the team and take RUBINO instead, but later they returned the Dane to his place and did not lose. Although the player showed many not the best moments of individual performance, he still helped the team to win at Games Clash Masters 2018 and TOYOTA Master CS: GO Bangkok 2018, as well as to take second place at Copenhagen Games 2018.

2019 was also a good year for him. The esportsman won the DreamHack Open Atlanta 2019, took the 2nd place at the DreamHack Open Rotterdam 2019 and took the 3-4th place in the EPICENTER 2019 standings.

In March, the player almost joined the ranks of FunPlus Phoenix to take part in FLASHPOINT Season 1, but the idea failed and the esportsman continued to perform under the banner of Heroic. Astralis announced that they would sign a contract with es3tag and surprised many. Patrick never stood out for his personality and individual play, but gla1ve and other teammates helped him to open up in a new way. Not only team captain Lucas 'gla1ve' Rossander played an important role in this, but also experienced team mentor Denny 'Zonic' Sorensen. Instead of playing quite restrained and modest, es3tag showed an excellent performance throughout ESL Pro League Season 12, where he played as part of Astralis, and after the grand final with NAVI, it will still be a long time coming in nightmares to the players from the Born to Win camp. ".

Speaking about the financial side of the situation, the most interesting thing in the moment of the es3tag buyout is the profitable receipt by the Danish organization of the player. They did not negotiate with Heroic on the payment of the forfeit, but simply waited until the Dane's contract expired. As a result, Astralis recruited an e-sportsman to their camp absolutely free of charge, but they managed to earn about $ 500,000 on the sale. For the world of esports, this amount is nothing but colossal.

According to an insider, Patrick 'es3tag' Hansen earns the largest salary of any player on the roster. According to him, the price of the entire roster cost Cloud9 $ 1,129,000, and $ 136,700 per month is spent on maintaining the players.

Players' salaries according to an insider:

• Patrick es3tag Hansen - 44.4 thousand dollars
• Alex ALEX McMeekin - 38.9 thousand dollars
• Ozgur woxic Ecker - 29.6 thousand dollars
• Ricky floppy Camery - 12 thousand dollars
• William Mezii Merriman - $ 11.8 thousand

Astralis wanted to become the founders of the 6-7 player containment method. After the Danes sold es3tag, the community representatives had a lot of questions for the management. Russian-speaking analyst and commentator petr1k and yXo started a whole discussion about this on Twitter.

petr1k: There is some benefit from a roster of six or more people: at any time you can sell someone to another team and not give up positions. But I still don't understand, what's the point for a PLAYER to sit in his pants in such a team?

yXo: It was said, the chela was not taken as a replacement, this is a full-fledged 6-7 man rotation. See how hockey makes substitutions throughout the match. The links are changing. Stop thinking on the same plane. You're still young!

petr1k: CS: GO is not hockey, the rules of tournaments cannot be changed during the match, according to Valve's rules, replacement between tournaments is punishable by a point penalty. In hockey, replacements are made because the players get tired quickly, nobody gets tired in kaese and can play the entire match without any problems.

yXo: I'm talking about rotation in the lineup, not sitting on the bank. CS: GO is not hockey, nor football, nor water polo. The point is that you pick players and play links, and then they buy yours for a lot of money, because in an experimental environment he got a boost and you just have a plus to sell it.