gokushima joins HOTU as stand-in

Esports organization HOTU has officially announced a replacement on its Counter-Strike 2 roster: Kim "frontales" Argunov will miss the upcoming PGL Astana 2026 qualifiers and CIS LAN Championship 4.

The Russian esports athlete's place in the starting five has been temporarily filled by Erkhan "gokushima" Bagynanov, who was unbanned early last fall by the Esports Ethics Commission (ESIC) for collaborating.

Notably, gokushima participated in match-fixing and also bet on his team. Furthermore, he was accused of concealing all facts and circumstances surrounding the ESIC violation, for which he received a two-year ban in April 2025.

Currently, HOTU sits 42nd in Valve's official ranking of the world's strongest Counter-Strike 2 teams.

 HOTU are now:

 Dmitriy "mizu" Kondratev
 Suleimen "dukefissura" Orazaly
 David "n0rb3r7" Danielyan
 Altair "kAlash" Askarov
 Erkhan "gokushima" Bagynanov (stand-in)

 Rüstem "mou" Telepov (Coach)

Origin: t.me