ENCE promote their academy squad as an interim CS2 roster

ENCE's academy team is now its main team. In a post on its own site dated Wednesday, April 1, 2026, the Finnish organization announced that the ENCE Academy roster will compete as its Counter-Strike 2 main roster for now, and that the academy team itself goes on hiatus. HLTV, the Counter-Strike news and statistics site, reported the move the same morning.

ENCE describes the lineup as an interim, transition-period roster, kept while the club evaluates and plans further changes. One player changes on the way up: HENU, a former academy player, comes back in place of Matz, who leaves for free agency. The coach, Whitey, moves up with his team.

The decision comes exactly three weeks after ENCE moved its whole international lineup to the bench and said it would rebuild around Finnish players. Since March 11, the organization had no active main team in the game that made its name. Now it has one, drawn entirely from its own development structure.

What ENCE announced on April 1

The announcement is short on promises and clear about its limits. ENCE says the academy squad continues as the main roster for the time being, and gives the players the chance to earn their place on it, in the club's own wording as HLTV reports it. At the same time the organization will keep scouting and trialling players from outside its own roster.

The club does not say how long the interim period will last. It says it wants to take its time with the building process, avoid rushed decisions and keep players and fans informed. No end date and no target event are given.

An academy team is a second roster that an organization runs below its main team, with younger players, in smaller competitions, so that they learn the job before being asked to do it at the top. In ENCE's case, the academy and the main team have now become the same five players, and the academy as a separate team is paused.

The process is led by Eemeli Ikonen, whom ENCE presents as its Head of Academy and Senior Team Manager. Looking back on the program he runs, he says in the club's post: "The past four years have been a valuable learning experience."

The five who move up

ENCE's post lists the roster with each player's full name, and names Schwarz as the in-game leader, the player who calls the team's tactics during a match.

ENCE writes that its academy has focused mainly on Finnish talent, with a few international players, and names Schwarz as one of them. That fits the direction the club set in March. Schwarz, like teme, millert and Cliqq, was already part of the academy lineup ENCE presented in February.

Matz leaves, HENU returns

The only change to the academy five concerns its newest member. Matz had joined ENCE Academy on February 11, 2026, as the fifth player, the club wrote at the time. He was also, in ENCE's words then, the first alumnus of ENCE Prospects to reach the academy roster: he had been part of that coaching program for younger players since it began in 2023, and had played on an earlier ENCE Prospects team in 2024.

That February lineup was built for a full spring. Matz filled the place of a player who had left, and ENCE announced that the five would make their debut together the next day, February 12, in the Play-In of European Pro League Series 5, a qualifying stage played before the main competition.

Seven weeks later he leaves the lineup and moves to free agency, which means he can sign with any team. ENCE's April post adds one practical detail: Matz will still play the remaining matches of ESL Challenger League Season 51 Europe Cup 3 with the team.

His place goes to HENU. ENCE describes him as a former academy player, so the change keeps the lineup inside the club's own development path: every member of the interim roster has played for ENCE Academy.

How ENCE built its academy

The roster that steps up is the product of a program that is now four years old. ENCE writes that its Academy Program started in the spring of 2022 and that its first roster was announced that July. Over those four years, by the club's count, 12 players have represented the academy.

The two graduates are the best-known names of the program. HLTV and ENCE both cite podi and myltsi as academy players who reached the main roster, in 2024 and 2025. Neither is on the new team. podi was one of the five players benched on March 11, when ENCE said he wished to pursue tier-one Counter-Strike, the informal name for the level of the biggest tournaments, rather than work on a project with upcoming Finnish players. HLTV's profile now lists myltsi with AM.

Below the academy, the youngest level carries on. ENCE says ENCE Prospects continues unchanged as its youth development team and plays in NUKE-Liiga, a Finnish youth league. Its season there, NUKE-Liiga Season 2, began on March 18, a date the club had already set out in its statement of March 11. So the three levels of March, Prospects, academy and main team, become two in April: Prospects below, and a main team made of academy players above.

From the March benching to an interim team

The April decision follows directly from March 11. On that day ENCE moved its five players, sdy, podi, Neityu, F1KU and kRaSnaL, from Ukraine, Finland, France and Poland, and their German head coach, enkay J, to the bench and made them available for transfer discussions. Its statement explained the change by the economics of the game: after a strategic review with its leadership and majority shareholders, the club wrote that competing internationally had become increasingly difficult in the current esports ecosystem for organizations like it, and that it would refocus on Finland. Its stated aim was to develop the next generation of Finnish players and to bring Finnish Counter-Strike back to the international stage, with further details to follow.

HLTV recalled at the time how far the club had come down. ENCE reached the grand final of IEM Katowice 2019 with a Finnish roster led by Aleksib. In Counter-Strike 2 it has made one Major appearance, PGL Copenhagen, and has not been in HLTV's top 20 since the first half of 2024. HLTV's ranking of March 9, 2026, two days before the benching, had ENCE 67th.

On March 11 the club also said that ENCE Academy would continue to operate normally during the transition. Three weeks on, the transition has reached the academy itself. Its five are now the main team, and the separate academy roster is on hiatus.

The step is consistent with what the club promised in March: a Counter-Strike team with Finnish talent at its core. By its own description, ENCE has for now filled the main roster with the players it already had, while it keeps scouting and trialling elsewhere.

The coach who moves up with them

Whitey stays in charge. The coach, whom HLTV lists as from the United Kingdom, had already been listed as head coach of ENCE Academy in February. In a post on X relayed by HLTV, he wrote: "Words cannot express how grateful I am to be able to fly the Finnish flag during this transition period." He added that after four years with ENCE his goals remained the same, developing Finnish and young talent.

Like the players, he takes charge of the main team inside a lineup that ENCE calls interim, in a structure the club says it is still evaluating.

What comes next

The ranking gives the starting point. HLTV's ranking of March 30, 2026 listed ENCE Academy 114th in the world: that was the academy team's position on the eve of the change.

The calendar in the short term is the one the academy already had. The team finishes ESL Challenger League Season 51 Europe Cup 3, with Matz still on the roster for those matches, ENCE says. Beyond that, the club names no event for the interim lineup.

The rest depends on decisions ENCE has said it will take without hurry: whether the five keep their places, which outside players it trials, and when the academy team returns as a separate roster. For now, the players have what the club itself calls the chance to earn their spot.

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