Envy return to Counter-Strike with the former 3DMAX roster

Envy has a Counter-Strike team again. The American organization announced its return to the game by signing the roster that had been playing as 3DMAX, HLTV reported on September 29, 2026. All five players are French.

Envy had been away since 2020. It comes back with a group that won two tournaments in September and that sits, according to HLTV, in a close contest for a place at the Singapore Major, which follows the one played in Cologne in June.

The calendar leaves little room. The ranking that decides the invitations to Singapore will be read on November 2, and the new Envy plays its first tournament on October 12.

What Envy announced

The signing covers a whole lineup, not a set of individual recruits. HLTV names the five players as Maka, Lucky, misutaaa, Kursy and Graviti, the same five it listed as 3DMAX's lineup on September 24.

HLTV's report does not name a coach for the Envy team. In its report on the title the group won in Warsaw a few days earlier, HLTV listed wasiNk with 3DMAX after the five players, without a role; the page on the signing shows him only in connection with the former team.

Nor does the report say how or when the five parted from 3DMAX, or on what terms Envy signed them. No fee and no contract length are given.

What it does give is the level the players have been at. HLTV prints, for each of them, the rating it computes over the past three months and the number of maps played.

Four of the five are above 1.00, and the map counts show a group that has played almost every game together over the period: between 72 and 75 maps each.

A name with a Major behind it

For anyone who followed Counter-Strike in the last decade, Envy is not a new name. HLTV recalls that the organization's only Major title came at DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca in 2015. A Major is the kind of championship whose invitations are drawn from the standings kept by Valve, the publisher of the game.

Its last team dates from 2020. That year, HLTV writes, Envy fielded an international lineup that included MICHU, Nifty and Thomas. The site puts the gap at almost six years.

The organization did not disappear in the meantime. It plays in Valorant, the shooter published by Riot Games, where it returned after three years away, Esports Insider reported in February 2026. Its roster there won Ascension 2025, a result that promoted the organization to the VCT circuit, and it played the VCT Americas Kickoff in 2026. The same outlet names Mike Rufail as the organization's owner.

So the return to Counter-Strike is the second comeback in a short time for the same brand, in a second game. In both cases Envy took on a group that already existed: the roster that had played as RANKERS in Valorant, according to Esports Insider, and a roster in the middle of a ranking race in Counter-Strike.

Two trophies in September

The players arrive on a run. HLTV reported on September 24 that 3DMAX had won Logitech G Play Connect 2026 in Warsaw, their second trophy of the month after NODWIN Clutch Series 11.

The route to the Warsaw title was not straight. The team lost twice in the group stage, to Inner Circle and to Liquid, and finished second in its group after a three-way tie with BBL and EYEBALLERS, according to HLTV. In the playoffs it beat M80 and then Inner Circle, each time in a series that went to three maps.

The final went the full five maps. 3DMAX beat Luminosity 3-2, and the fifth map, Nuke, was decided in overtime. Luminosity is itself a returning name: it came back to the game in July with a newly signed lineup, HLTV reported at the time.

The team did not stop there. HLTV listed its next stop as 1win Private Club Season 1, a US$100,000 tournament in Belgrade that started the day after that report. HLTV's headline of September 28 gave that title to Ninjas in Pyjamas.

The Warsaw win was worth 214 Valve points, HLTV wrote, and lifted the team into the qualification zone for the Singapore Major as the 18th-highest-ranked side in Europe. The beaten finalist sat just ahead: HLTV put Luminosity 17th in Europe, seven points above 3DMAX.

It was also the moment the move to Envy surfaced in public. HLTV noted that Envy posted on X straight after the final, in a message the site read as all but confirming a return to the game. The announcement was reported five days after that.

The ranking that travels with the players

The reason a roster's results matter to the organization that signs it lies in how Counter-Strike hands out its places. Invitations to the Majors are drawn from the Valve Regional Standings, a ranking kept by Valve, with a global table and regional ones such as Europe's, usually shortened to VRS. Teams earn points at the tournaments they play.

The players' recent results put them near the line. On the team ranking HLTV publishes, the group has climbed through the second half of the year: 29th on July 6, when it was in the field of a tournament in Barcelona, 23rd on September 21 and 20th in the edition dated September 28.

The longer view shows a team that started the year higher. The same ranking had 3DMAX 13th on February 9 and 14th on March 2.

The group has also been a regular guest at larger events without being among their favorites on paper. In February it was one of sixteen teams at PGL Cluj-Napoca, a US$1.25 million tournament in Romania, and one of the five in that field that stood outside the top twelve of HLTV's ranking of February 9. In March, 3DMAX loaned its player bodyy to OG, HLTV reported on March 7.

HLTV describes the situation in one phrase: the squad is in a close battle for a Singapore slot. In a separate piece on September 30, the site called the race for invitations incredibly volatile and set to shift daily, and noted that the invitations were due in just over a month.

Five weeks to the cut-off

The dates are fixed. The PGL Singapore Major is scheduled from November 24 to December 13, 2026, with 32 teams and US$1.25 million in prize money, HLTV reported on April 9. PGL, the organizer, set the cut-off for invitations at November 2.

That is 34 days after Envy's announcement, and 22 days before the first match in Singapore. HLTV wrote that this is the shortest time between a Major's cut-off and its start; earlier cut-offs had fallen closer to two months before the event. For the Cologne Major, played from June 2 to 21, the standings that fixed the 32 invitations were those of April 6.

A later deadline means that tournaments played in October still count. HLTV names two that the team is set to attend before then.

Stake Pulse Beat III is an in-person tournament with US$80,000 in prize money. HLTV published its field on September 16, when BC.Game took the last place through an open qualifier. 3DMAX was on that list of sixteen, alongside Astralis, Liquid, Ninjas in Pyjamas, HEROIC, fnatic, 100 Thieves, B8, MIBR, Alliance, Inner Circle, HOTU, JiJieHao, Betclic and Sangal.

Several of those names crossed the roster's path in September. Liquid and Inner Circle both beat the French five in Warsaw's group stage, and Inner Circle then lost to them in the playoffs. HEROIC beat 100 Thieves to lift the Stake Pulse Beat II trophy, HLTV reported on September 26.

Stockholm ends on October 17, which leaves sixteen days and one more listed event before the standings are read.

What the report leaves open

Three things are absent from HLTV's account, and nothing in it allows them to be filled in.

The first is the staff. No coach is named for Envy, and the status of wasiNk, listed with the former team, is not addressed.

The second is the 3DMAX side. The report says nothing about what the French organization does next in Counter-Strike, or whether it keeps a place in the events it had entered. The September 16 list for Stockholm carried its name, and the September 29 article says Envy is set to attend.

The third is the length of the commitment. Envy returns with five players under its name and two tournaments on its schedule; the report gives no duration for the contracts.

The first answer on the field comes on October 12 in Stockholm. The one that matters for the season comes three weeks later, when the invitations to Singapore are drawn and the roster learns whether its September carried it far enough.

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