G2 sign r1nkle off the NIP bench as their new AWPer

G2 went to another club's bench to find its next sniper. On June 25, 2026, the organization announced that it had completed the signing of r1nkle from Ninjas in Pyjamas, HLTV, the reference news site for Counter-Strike, reported that afternoon. The 21-year-old Ukrainian takes the place of SunPayus, whom G2 had moved to its own bench earlier the same day.

The deal is a transfer between two clubs, and both ends of it matter. For G2, a quarter-finalist of the IEM Cologne Major six days earlier, it settles who holds the AWP, the game's sniper rifle, and it does so with a player from outside, in a week when one player of its academy system is offered on loan and another sees his loan end. For Ninjas in Pyjamas, known as NIP, it closes a file opened in April, when the club removed r1nkle from its starting five.

HLTV report of June 25, 2026. BLAST Bounty Season 2 begins on July 21.

What G2 announced on June 25

HLTV's report of the signing is timed at 16:30, 26 minutes after its report of the benching. It says G2 signed r1nkle from Ninjas in Pyjamas to fill the vacancy left by SunPayus. It gives no fee and no contract length.

The role is the one SunPayus held. A team hands the AWP to one specialist, called the AWPer, and arranges part of its play around him. SunPayus, 27, had been that player since July 2025, with a 1.05 average rating over his year, a rating being the single figure HLTV computes for each professional from his statistics. He won the BLAST Open London 2025 Finals with the team. He is benched, which means he is out of the five that plays.

Nothing else moves. huNter-, MATYS, HeavyGod and NertZ stay, with sAw as head coach. HLTV describes the signing as a surprise move.

The transfer follows an exchange of players in March and a contract extension in early June, and it arrives in a week when four of the club's players made news in three days.

A sniper signed from outside, two academy players on the move

The table shows the choice G2 made. The club runs an academy team, G2 Ares, ranked 80th in the world by HLTV on June 22, and it has an AWPer who came through it. It still went to the market.

That AWPer is kl1m, a 20-year-old Russian who played for G2 Ares from September 2024 to August 2025 and then went on loan to MIBR, a Brazilian club, in August 2025. A loan sends a player to another team for a time while his contract stays with his club. MIBR announced the end of that loan on June 26, HLTV reported. The site ranked kl1m fifth in its June 2026 list of the most promising young players and credits him with two Major appearances for MIBR, at StarLadder Budapest and IEM Cologne, reaching Stage 2 each time. Its report says his future is unclear.

The day before the signing, G2 had spoken about another academy player. The club told HLTV on June 24 that it was seeking loan offers for tAk, a 21-year-old Lithuanian who has been with G2 Ares since 2024 and averaged a 1.18 rating in 2026. Its manager, peca, described the loan as a route that had worked for kl1m at MIBR and said regular playing time in the right project could be the next step for tAk as well.

Put together, the three reports point the same way. G2's academy players gain experience in other teams' line-ups, and the vacancy in its own five goes to a player with two years at Ninjas in Pyjamas behind him.

Ten weeks on another club's bench

r1nkle did not come from a starting five. Ninjas in Pyjamas had benched him on April 15, as HLTV reported that day under a headline that tied the decision to the club's failure to reach the Cologne Major.

His record at NIP explains both the benching and the interest. He joined from B8 in April 2024, as the replacement for his compatriot headtr1ck, HLTV recalls in its report of the signing. The site writes that he showed flashes of potential in his first 18 months. In April it described him as a flashy, aggressive sniper whose form had declined: his rating in 2026 stood at 1.08 overall and at 1.02 against teams ranked in the top 50.

NIP's own statement at the time, as HLTV reported it, did not fault the player. The club praised his professionalism and his commitment, and said the team felt the need to try a different direction in the roles and the dynamics of its roster. It then signed stavn as its primary AWPer, in a report HLTV published 35 minutes after the benching.

From April 15 to June 25 there are 71 days, just over ten weeks. That is the stretch the Ukrainian spent outside NIP's five before G2 announced him.

What changes inside G2's five

On paper the change is small: one name out of five. The numbers HLTV printed with its report show where the difference lies, and it is not in the ratings. Over the past three months SunPayus stood at 1.07, level with huNter- and MATYS and one hundredth under NertZ. The newcomer's 1.19 equals HeavyGod's, the best figure of the team, and it rests on a far smaller sample.

Four players arrive at the next tournament with a full spring of matches behind them, including a Major run that ended against Spirit in the quarter-finals. The fifth has played a tenth of that.

The signing also makes the team younger. HLTV lists huNter- at 30, NertZ at 26, MATYS at 24 and HeavyGod at 23. With SunPayus, 27, the five averaged 26.0 years. With r1nkle, 21, the average falls to 24.8.

HLTV names the two people it expects to shape the newcomer. Its report says G2 will look to huNter-, the team's captain, and to sAw to bring more out of r1nkle and turn him into a player who makes the difference reliably. sAw had spent part of the Major speaking about the same seat: in an interview HLTV published on June 12, he said SunPayus was in the right positions and that the difficulty lay in confidence.

G2 makes the change from a position of strength in the standings. HLTV ranked the team seventh on June 22. NIP, the club r1nkle leaves, was 26th on the same list.

What the sale changes at Ninjas in Pyjamas

For the selling club, the transfer removes a player it had already stopped using, at a moment when its roster is short of active names.

NIP has kept changing since April. HLTV's archive shows that the club benched cairne on June 13. On June 22 it announced the temporary promotion of n0te, a 20-year-old Belgian from Young Ninjas, its academy team, for what it called the upcoming events. NIP told HLTV that he is registered for two tournaments, XSE Pro League and Stake Ranked Episode 3.

The line-up HLTV listed that day has Snappi, sjuush, xKacpersky and stavn, with n0te marked as a stand-in, a temporary replacement, and Xizt as coach. stavn, who took the AWP from r1nkle, has a 1.12 rating over 28 maps in the past three months.

In April, NIP carried two benched players next to its five, r1nkle and ewjerkz. The move to G2 takes the first of them off its books, in the same month that cairne joined the list.

Buyer and seller on the same calendar

The two clubs will not have to wait long to cross paths. Both are entered in two events of the summer.

The first is BLAST Bounty 2026 Season 2, which HLTV gives as r1nkle's first appearance for G2. According to the team list the site published on June 18, it has 32 teams in a single-elimination bracket, where one lost series ends a team's tournament. Every series is a best-of-three, won by the first team to take two maps. The online stage runs from July 21 to 26, and the top eight then travel to Malta for a stage played in person from July 30 to August 2. G2 and Ninjas in Pyjamas are both on the list.

The second is the Esports World Cup. Its Counter-Strike tournament is played in Paris from August 12 to 23 for US$2 million, HLTV reported on June 2. It invited 28 teams on the basis of the Valve Regional Standings of June 1, the ranking kept by the game's publisher, and adds four more through an open qualifier played from August 7 to 9. G2 and NIP are both among the 28.

From June 25 to July 21, G2 has 26 days to fit a new sniper into a team that reached the quarter-finals of the Major. Three AWPers stand around the club in the meantime: r1nkle in the five, SunPayus on the bench, and kl1m, whose loan to MIBR has ended.

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