Dust2 Digest: Top news from February 2023

The Dust2 Digest is a monthly digest recapping all of the most important and impactful pieces of NA CS news throughout each month on the Dust2.us and HLTV news networks.

Tournament organizers were in the spotlight in February for multiple reasons, most of them bad. According to The Esports Advocate’s James Fudge, Nerd Street is in a financial hole and is seeking investment or outright acquisition. The uncertain future of NSG also means uncertainty for NA’s flagship LAN, Fragadelphia.

Following community backlash, BLAST moved the Spring Showdown two weeks into the calendar year to help with RMR schedules for the Americas region. The changes were accommodating to player and team travel during a rather competitive period of the season.

Following a tweet by Detonate coach Josh “m1cks” Micks, the community helped start a movement to overturn Valve’s initial decision to not cover travel costs for coaches. Valve did not take long to respond to the community with a reversal of the decision. Thanks to the efforts of all, coaches will now receive travel cover from Valve.

Evil Geniuses caught strays from Liquid’s Keith “NAF” Markovic in a podcast interview with Alex “Mauisnake” Ellenberg. The Canadian star offered his insight about management during his brief negotiations with the org, stating that EG had “some of the worst management” he had ever talked to, among other things.

Liquid completed a historic comeback against Vitality at IEM Katowice, winning after a 0-12 deficit for only the second recorded time in the scene’s history. After the map victory, Liquid would eventually secure the series 2-1.

The recent HLTV rankings update saw a major rise in Complexity’s rank following impressive LAN wins over ENCE, fnatic, and MOUZ at IEM Katowice to earn a No. 10 ranking, the highest since this iteration’s inception. Their jump to ten also marks the first time in a while the Americas ranking hierarchy did not have Liquid and FURIA in both top spots.

The NA RMR Closed Qualifiers took place in February, with each team vying for seven seats at the Americas RMR in April. To the shock of many, EG did the unthinkable and failed to advance to the RMR. With the available opportunity in front of them following EG's exit, lesser-known lineups such as Detonate and yur were able to earn a seat in the RMR to inch closer to the Major.

NA Closed Qualifier teams advanced:

ESL Pro League S17 update

• Liquid: vs Rare Atom, Group D upper bracket quarter-final, March 15th at 02:30PM.

• Complexity: vs BIG, Group B upper bracket quarter-final, March 1st at 10:00AM.

• EG: Eliminated at 29-32nd place.

• ATK: vs ENCE, Group D upper bracket quarter-final, March 15th at 02:30PM.

ESL Challenger League S44 top eight

ESEA Advanced S44 top eight

ESEA Main S44 top eight

Notable roster moves

• Vendetta bring in Silas "silas" Marrufo

• Nouns cut IGL after two months

• Top Mexican talent returns on Nouns

• ATK find out-of-this-world replacement

• Complexity move on from Junior, AWPer signs with Evil Geniuses

• ATK cut Pluto, to use Macedonian star, but also found their ECL stand-in.

• Disconnected lose connection to the server