seized ends his playing career

Russian esports athlete Denis "seized" Kostin has officially retired as Counter-Strike pro player vis his Telegram channel.

seized explained that he does not intend to completely leave the professional scene: next year he will participate in various media projects, and in the future he plans to transition to the role of coach.

I came to this decision because there was no worthy option to continue my career, with whom I believed that we could achieve quickly some decent result: to advance to the major and fight with the best teams. In view of the new rule from Valve, I don't see how that can be realized unless you're a top-40 team in the world. <...>

Next year I will be involved in different media projects, I will stay in the scene. You will be able to find out in the near future, what will be the projects I will participate in.

After a year, of course, I would like to return to the position of coach. I still have that fervor, I want to compete, go to tournaments, help the team in the stadiums, win trophies in a slightly different role, let's say.

Kostin added that he had a good career in Counter-Strike, and he does not regret anything.

Looking back on my career, I can say that it was a good career on which you can, well, if not make movies, you can definitely write a book. I don't regret anything, it was an unrealistically cool time. I don't know what else to say at times like this. It's really hard. I'm not going anywhere. We'll be seeing a lot more of each other. I'm gonna start streaming a lot soon. So we'll definitely see each other on the streams.

Recently, Denis joined a new media team founded by streamer Vyacheslav "Buster" Leontiev. It was called "Bogatyri Esports". Besides Leontiev and Kostin, it included Egor "flamie" Vasilyev, Rustem "mou" Telepov and Almaz "almazer" Asadullin.

seized's previous professional team was 9 Pandas – he competed for it from July 2022 to June 2024. Previously, the esports athlete also represented Vega Squadron, Gambit, NAVI and other clubs. During his entire career in CS, he earned $381,000 in prize money.

Origin: t.me