As reported by HLTV on Tuesday, rumours sparked the possibility of Endpoint’s Guy “Nertz” Iluz transfer to Finnish organisation ENCE. As of today, the speculation has been vindicated as the Israeli superstar has signed to the 18th ranked organization in the world.
This comes after Nertz chose not to play alongside Endpoint in the ongoing BLAST Paris Major Open Qualifiers and was substituted by Frederik “Fessor” Sørensen, which added fuel to the fire surrounding these rumors. Whilst Endpoint claimed this was due to ‘personal reasons’ in their tweet, these suspicions have now been confirmed. Nertz was attempting to avoid being locked into Endpoint’s roster before his transfer to ENCE, who will be competing in group B of the BLAST Paris RMR starting April 11th.
It comes as no surprise to see Nertz garner interest from the upper echelons of CS:GO organisations, especially when considering his dominant performances over the last year. In his last three months with the squad he averaged a formidable 1.20 HLTV rating, putting forward a solid case for a chance to dip his toes in tier 1 competition. Nertz will be replacing the recently benched Valdemar “valde” Bjørn Vangså to complete the lineup, which consists of Marco “Snappi” Pfeiffer, Paweł “dycha” Dycha, Alvaro “SunPayus” Garcia and Pavle “Maden” Bošković. Nertz will be stepping into the roles of his fellow countryman Lotan “Spinx” Giladi, previously of ENCE, now Vitality man – as yet another Israeli national now gets their opportunity on the international stage.
UKCSGO spoke with Endpoint’s co-owner Peter Thompson after the confirmation of Nertz’s transfer:
The improvements that Nertz has made over his time at Endpoint are incredible. Widely regarded now as the best player in tier 2, it was just a matter of time before someone came in for him, and ENCE were not the first to inquire. He has been an excellent ambassador for Endpoint and we are super happy and proud of where his career is clearly going. We look forward to seeing him reach new heights and be among the best in tier 1.
Whilst certainly a big loss to Endpoint in terms of firepower, we already know that the organisation has a storied history in finding and nurturing unproven talents like Shahar “flameZ” Shushan, William “mezii” Merriman, Mohammad “BOROS” Malhas, and Dion “FASHR” Derksen to name a few. With their next S-tier event not yet on the horizon, there is plenty of time for the UK’s premier CS:GO organization to find their next superstar.
This leaves Endpoint with the remaining four of:
Max “MiGHTYMAX” Heath
Kia “Surreal” Man
Miłosz “mhL” Knasiak
Nikita “HeavyGod” Martynenko
Allan “Rejin” Petersen (Coach)
