500 bench SHiPZ

The Bulgarian squad have made the move amid a torrid run of form.

500 have announced that Georgi "⁠SHiPZ⁠" Grigorov is being moved to the bench, with their coach Denis "⁠Grashog⁠" Hristov filling his spot on the main roster. The announcement comes mere weeks after 500 failed to qualify for the BLAST Paris Major via the Europe RMR B.

It does not appear that Grashog will be the permanent fifth for the team as the announcement stated he would "fill the slot while we evaluate our options."

SHiPZ is on the hunt for a new team

SHiPZ was a part of the ex-SKADE roster that was picked up by Curaçaoan organization 500 as they entered CS:GO in October last year. The team began their lives under their new tag in promising fashion, winning back-to-back EPIC GOCL seasons and making a playoff run at Elisa Masters Espoo, picking up wins over Astralis and Complexity in the process.

The Bulgarians continued to be a dangerous opponent in tier two but struggled to find consistency, and that trend held true into the early months of 2023.

Despite their inconsistency 500 managed to qualify for the BLAST Paris Major Europe RMR B via the last chance qualifier. At the RMR itself the team managed to pick up a win over Spirit, but losses to Heroic, BIG and ENCE prevented them from securing a Paris Major berth.

500’s form since the RMR turned from inconsistent to poor, with the team sporting an 8-14 match record in the months of March and April and being relegated from ESL Challenger League to ESEA Advanced.

SHiPZ took to Twitter after the announcement to wish the organization and players the best, and direct interested parties to his agent.

500 are now:

Denislav "⁠dennyslaw⁠" Dimitrov
Nikolay "⁠niki1⁠" Pantaleev
Ivan "⁠Patrick⁠" Ivanov
Aleks "⁠Rainwaker⁠" Petrov
Denis "⁠Grashog⁠" Hristov (coach, stand-in)

Georgi "⁠SHiPZ⁠" Grigorov (benched)