After Into The Breach’s failure at the PGL Copenhagen Major RMRs, Thomas “Thomas” Utting was benched, but now he returns to competition at the helm of a new team. Thomas has signed with 5W, an organisation based out of India, two months after being benched by Into the Breach.
The Brit will once again be captaining a team as he wants to “develop his leadership with international players and work with other coaches”. Four countries are represented on the server for the brand-new Indian esports organisation alongside the 26-year-old IGL.
Up first is the Bulgarian duo. Deyvid “h4rn” Benchev is a scary AWPer to be facing in the server, however, he has not really been able to find a stable squad. Starting regionally on teams such as Fiend it was clear there was promise as he boasted an average 1.16 HLTV rating. But he then bounced around teams like Enterprise, VOYVODA, and Pompa where he has continued to put up big numbers. 
Thomas being interviewed by James Banks at the Blast.TV Paris Majorh4rn is joined by a familiar face, Hristiyan “REDSTAR” Pironkov. They played together for a short stint on VOYVODA before REDSTAR joined the staple of Bulgarian CS, 500. The rifler returns to a multinational team after a short stint on Monte where they placed well online before he was cut.
The most eye-opening player to join the roster is Joel “joel” Holmlund. Most CS fans won’t know him for his crazy rifling skills, but for his recent match-fixing scandal. At the end of last year, while playing on Victory ZigZag, ESIC handed him a ban, but due to no “compelling or conclusive” evidence his ban ended on January 6th. The Swede landed quickly on his feet joining TSM on a two-month probation period where in the first month he dropped a 1.62 HLTV rating. Now the 19-year-old embarks on a new project with this international team.
Finally, the roster is rounded out by Luca “pr1metapz” Voigt who will be making his debut outside of German CS. He previously played for BIG Academy in the first two seasons of the WePlay Academy league where he placed third in the inaugural season and fourth in the second. Most recently, he won ESEA Advanced Season 47 and finished second at the ESL Meisterschaft Autumn 2023 Finals with BIG Academy.
UKCSGO reached out to Thomas regarding the future and expectations of 5W:
The latter part of my ITB roster wasn’t the best showing for myself and I feel like I let myself down, I didn’t trust my initiative and didn’t make the correct calls at the needed times. With this new roster I’m hoping to develop myself and create a competitive roster in time for the RMR so we can potentially make the Shanghai Major.
I feel like when we lost some key players within the roster [ITB] my personal motivation and enjoyment of the roster dropped a lot, it didn’t help that we were also going through a bad period of poor performances. Going forward I want to become a more rounded individual inside and outside of the game who can be more involved in the team’s goings on, pushing development of the strat book and pushing my own idea of how to play instead of trying to cater to people’s needs.
5W Gaming, the brand-new Indian esports organisation, is currently:
Thomas “Thomas” Utting
Hristiyan “REDSTAR” Pironkov
Deyvid “h4rn” Benchev
Joel “joel” Holmlund
Luca “pr1metapz” Voigt
WE PROMISED SOMETHING ELECTRIFYING! ⚡ 5W Gaming presents our new CS2 team and roster:
🇧🇬 @h4rncs
🇸🇪 @joelholmlund
🇬🇧 @ThomasCS__
🇧🇬 @REDS7AR
🇩🇪 @pr1metapzWelcome to all of you and let's make things happen! #LetsGoZaps pic.twitter.com/zFBE89O2Cd
— 5W Gaming (@5W_gaming) May 18, 2024
