True Rippers shuts down CS division

Dust2 India have confirmed with Indian esports organisation, True Rippers, that the Bengaluru-based organisation has closed their Counter-Strike division. The decision with the organisation stating that it is not viable for them to keep a Counter-Strike roster given the lack of investment at the moment amongst other factors.

True Rippers made their entry to the Indian Counter-Strike scene almost a year ago, late in November 2023, acquiring the Marcos Gaming roster and had their biggest moment when they became the Indian representatives at the $250k LAN event in Mumbai, the Skyesports Championship 2024. The organisation also had a run in the Shanghai Major Asia RMR Closed Qualifier, failing to make a mark and recently went down to their rivals Gods Reign, to lose out on the Indian spot at the eXTREMESLAND 2024 LAN event, which will take place in Shanghai in January 2025.

The recently concluded AMD GameOn 2024 LAN was True Rippers' final CS2 event. True Rippers went on to win the AMD GameOn 2024 event and reV3nnnn, spoke to Dust2 India post the Grand Final stating that he and the remainder of the roster is looking for a new home.

True Rippers also fielded international players this year, having had Russian DayMake wield the Big Green for them for the majority of the year before signing Australian Crunchy and Malaysian Anasasis before the Asia RMR Closed Qualifier. The team though, lost their captain recently, with Rossi moving to Gods Reign and there was no official announcement from True Rippers regarding Rossi's departure although the organisation has confirmed to Dust2 India's query about the same, which they stated as 'the move is official'.

As an organization, True Rippers has always prioritised supporting its players, even during times when results were not as expected. We stood by the team through highs and lows, investing time, effort and resources to help them grow and succeed.

However, over time, trust between the organization and the players began to erode. While the team undoubtedly has immense potential, we believe it wasn’t fully realized due to various factors. One of the key challenges we faced was the lack of a well-defined roadmap to guide the division towards sustained success.

This has been a difficult decision, but it’s one we believe is necessary at this point. True Rippers remains committed to fostering talent and learning from this experience to ensure better outcomes in the future.
True Rippers' official statement

It's been a rough year for Indian Counter-Strike, with the year kicking off with multiple organisation in the scene like Gods Reign, True Rippers, Marcos Gaming, Carnival Gaming, Grayfox Esports and VICTORES SUMUS. Eleven months later, its only Gods Reign and VICTORES SUMUS standing as all of the other organisations have dropped their rosters and left Counter-Strike with no tournament organisers (TO) coming forward to host events. The country saw only one major only-Indian event take place, which was the Skyesports Showdown 2024 (Carnival Gaming won the online event) but barring that, there has been only Skyesports hosting a couple of events, although the Indian TO had allotted only one spot for Indian teams in most of their events, favouring European and CIS teams more.

Skyesports was scheduled to host two more events as part of their 2024 calendar but hasn't hosted them and there has been no official statement regarding the cancellation or postponement of the events either. Skyesports has currently just finished hosting the AMD GameOn 2024 event, as a collaborator and had LAN Finale but barring that, there is no other events scheduled for the Indian scene.