The MongolZ bench DarkMeister and tikuak, leaving three active players

The MongolZ announced on Tuesday, September 15, 2026, that DarkMeister and tikuak have been moved to the bench of the Counter-Strike 2 team, HLTV, the reference news site for the game, reported that afternoon. The two had joined the lineup together on July 12. Their time in the active roster lasted two months and, by HLTV's count, nine matches.

The Mongolian team now lists three active players, bLitz, 910 and Techno, under coach maaRaa. A Counter-Strike team plays with five. HLTV expects the team's next tournament to be PGL Masters Bucharest, which begins on October 24.

HLTV, September 15 and July 16, 2026. The 39 days run from September 15 to October 24.

What The MongolZ announced

The announcement concerns two players and one status. A benched player stays with the organization but is taken out of the lineup that plays; it is not a release, and HLTV's roster box keeps both names under The MongolZ with the mention "benched".

HLTV reports no official reason. Its article places the decision after a difficult run of results, which it describes without attributing that reading to the team: a finish between ninth and sixteenth place at the Esports World Cup, then a last place at FISSURE Playground 3 in China the week before the announcement.

The roster box now holds more benched players than active ones. cobrazera, who was benched in July and brought back for one tournament in September, is also listed on the bench.

The in-game leader is the player who decides the team's tactics during a round. The AWPer is the one who uses the AWP, the game's most powerful sniper rifle. Both roles are held by players who remain active.

A summer of changes around three players

The three who remain were all in the five the team registered in the spring. In April, when the tournament organizer ESL published the rosters of the IEM Cologne Major, the five registered by The MongolZ were bLitz, Techno, mzinho, 910 and cobrazera, HLTV reported at the time.

That five came apart in one week of July. BC.Game made the signing of mzinho official on July 9, according to HLTV. On Sunday, July 12, The MongolZ announced that cobrazera was moved to the bench, which HLTV described as the team's second change of the off-season, the break between two parts of the competitive year. The site gave no reason for that decision either.

Later the same day, the organization announced two signings to fill the two places, DarkMeister and tikuak. DarkMeister came up from The MongolZ Academy, HLTV reported.

The latest change before this week came on September 3. The MongolZ announced that cobrazera would be in the starting five for FISSURE Playground 3, in place of Techno. HLTV, which reported it, gave no reason for the swap. In the roster published on September 15, Techno is active again and cobrazera is back on the bench.

Nine matches with the new five

The lineup formed in July started with a win: HLTV reported on July 26 that The MongolZ had swept Wildcard to reach the finals of BLAST Bounty Season 2. Three tournaments followed.

The first was those finals, at the end of July. The MongolZ met FaZe in a best-of-three series, won by the first team to take two maps, with a place in the semi-finals at stake. They lost two maps to one, against a team ranked one place below them, 13th to their 12th, in HLTV's ranking of July 27. On the first map, Nuke, they led 12-3 before FaZe won thirteen rounds in a row and took it 16-12 after overtime. The MongolZ won Mirage 13-7, then lost Ancient 13-8. A map is normally won by the first team to reach thirteen rounds.

The coach was not with the team for that tournament. HLTV reported on July 28 that maaRaa was unable to attend the Bounty finals and the Esports World Cup that followed.

At the Esports World Cup, the multi-game event the team had won a year earlier, The MongolZ finished between ninth and sixteenth place, HLTV wrote on September 15.

The third event was FISSURE Playground 3, which started on September 8 in Suzhou, China. With cobrazera in the five in place of Techno, The MongolZ lost their opening series to MIBR on a deciding map that went to overtime. They then lost two maps to none to 5star, another Mongolian team that had earned the last place in the tournament through the Asian closed qualifier, and were eliminated in joint-last place, according to HLTV's report of September 9. In HLTV's world ranking of September 7, The MongolZ were 14th, MIBR 28th and 5star 127th. The tournament was won by Legacy, who beat G2 in the final.

The ranking, from first place to the edge of the top 15

The results show in the two rankings that matter in Counter-Strike. HLTV's own world ranking is the one fans quote. The Valve Regional Standings, known as the VRS, are the ranking kept by Valve, the game's publisher, and used to invite teams to tournaments.

In HLTV's ranking, The MongolZ were 12th on July 6, in the last ranking before the signings, and 12th on July 27. They were 14th on August 31 and September 7, and 15th in the ranking of September 14, the last before the announcement.

The fall is sharper when set against the previous year. According to HLTV's report of September 3, The MongolZ spent most of 2025 in the world's top five and reached first place in September 2025. In its July report on cobrazera, the site recalled that the team had reached three consecutive finals in the second half of 2025 and won that year's Esports World Cup. On September 3, 2026, HLTV placed the team 18th in the VRS, its lowest position since May 2024.

Two departures frame that slide. Senzu left after two years with the team, and cobrazera was signed from The Huns in December 2025 to replace him. At The Huns he had averaged a 1.13 rating against opponents HLTV described as mostly regional and second-tier. mzinho followed in July. Both Senzu and mzinho now play for BC.Game. When cobrazera was benched in July, HLTV set his average rating over his months with the team, 1.02, beside the 1.12 Senzu had averaged in 2025, and wrote that The MongolZ had gone from a regular top-five team to a top-ten one.

What the active three have shown recently

HLTV publishes a rating for each player, a single figure that sums up kills, deaths, damage and impact over a period. A rating of 1.00 is about average.

Over the three months before the announcement, the figures printed on HLTV's article separate the three active players clearly. The same box gives cobrazera's figure, but over seven maps only, against 18 to 23 for the others.

910, the AWPer, carries the best figure among the three active players. On cobrazera, HLTV's report on the elimination in Suzhou noted that he had returned in strong form without changing the outcome.

The same three-month figure, read on HLTV's earlier reports, has moved little for two of the three. 910 stood at 1.17 on July 12 and 1.14 on September 3. bLitz stood at 1.00, then 1.04. Techno's went from 0.90 on July 12 to 0.88 on September 3 and 0.85 on September 15.

An invitation to Bucharest and five weeks to use it

The MongolZ do not have to qualify for their next tournament. PGL Masters Bucharest 2026 is played from October 24 to 31 in the Romanian capital, with a prize pool of US$1,250,000, HLTV reported on July 16 when the organizer PGL announced its invitations. Twelve teams were invited on the basis of the VRS of July 6, and four more come through regional qualifiers, for a field of sixteen.

The MongolZ took the last of the twelve invitations. They were 13th in that VRS, and the place opened when Falcons declined theirs, according to the same report. The other invited teams are Vitality, Spirit, FURIA, Natus Vincere, 9z, Aurora, G2, BETBOOM, MOUZ, Legacy and FUT. Aurora are the defending champions of the event, and BETBOOM and 9z both reached the quarter-finals of the IEM Cologne Major, HLTV wrote. The four qualifier places went to Liquid, TYLOO, DENDELE and Nemiga, HLTV reported on September 13.

The tournament opens with a Swiss stage, a system in which teams with the same record of wins and losses meet each other until some have won enough to advance and others have lost enough to go out. Eight teams reach a single-elimination bracket, and the final is a best-of-five.

Its dates matter beyond the trophy. The event ends just before November 2, the date on which the VRS will be read to invite teams to the PGL Singapore Major, HLTV noted in July. Majors are the tournaments sponsored by Valve and the most important of the Counter-Strike calendar.

Between now and the first match in Bucharest, The MongolZ have, in HLTV's words, just over a month to bring their roster back up to full strength. Two places are open, three players are on the bench, and HLTV's report names no replacement.

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