There was a time when thousands of Counter-Strike fans were singing about a Finnish team that wasn’t supposed to make it that far. ENCE had turned a community meme into an anthem, beaten some of the best teams in the world, and come within one series of winning a Major. For a brief period in 2019, it seemed everything was going their way.
Seven years later, ENCE announced that its board had decided to file for bankruptcy. The organization that once challenged Astralis, reached the top two in the world, and later rebuilt itself into a championship contender was calling it a day.
Yet reducing ENCE’s history to its rise and eventual collapse would do it a disservice. This was an organization that failed, started again, made a disastrous roster decision, rebuilt from almost nothing, and somehow found its way back to the top. More than once.
ENCE’s difficult beginnings
ENCE’s story began in 2013, long before the Spodek Arena was singing its name. The Finnish organization entered CSwith ambitions of building something meaningful in a country that had produced talented Counter-Strike players but struggled to establish a consistent international powerhouse.
Its early years were anything but smooth. ENCE fielded several Finnish lineups, including teams featuring allu, suNny and natu, but struggled to find lasting success. The organization discontinued its CS operations in 2014 before returning in 2016, again building around allu and suNny.
That comeback was short-lived. allu left for FaZe later that year, and despite bringing in a young Aleksib, ENCE couldn’t find the results or stability it needed. Another rebuild followed, and the organization eventually stepped away from Counter-Strike again in 2017.
For much of its early existence, ENCE was better known for its potential than its achievements. Finnish Counter-Strike had plenty of individual talent, but bringing that talent together into a team capable of competing internationally remained a problem.
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Five Finns and an unlikely dream
ENCE’s return in April 2018 brought together five players who would become inseparable from the organization’s identity: allu, Aleksib, sergej, Aerial and xseveN. On paper, it wasn’t the sort of roster expected to challenge the established giants. allu was the experienced AWPer, having previously represented NiP and FaZe, while Aleksib was an emerging in-game leader. Aerial and xseveN brought experience from the Finnish scene, and sergej was a remarkably talented teenager with almost no experience at the highest level.
What made ENCE special was how well those pieces worked together. Aleksib developed a structured approach that allowed ENCE to compete against individually stronger teams. allu provided experience and reliable AWPing, Aerial created openings, xseveN handled the less glamorous work, and sergej supplied the firepower.
Their first major breakthrough arrived at StarSeries i-League Season 6 in October 2018. ENCE defeated Vega Squadron 3-2 in a marathon grand final, claiming their first significant international title. Just 16 at the time, sergej finished the tournament as its MVP. A DreamHack Open Winter victory followed in December. Suddenly, ENCE looked like more than another promising Finnish roster.
Then came Katowice, which remains the defining chapter of ENCE’s history. After stumbling to a 0-2 record in the Legends Stage, the Finns were just one map away from elimination against BIG. They recovered to win that series, then defeated G2 and AVANGAR to reach the playoffs. Their reward was a quarterfinal against Liquid, one of the strongest teams in the world. Most expected ENCE’s run to end there, but Aleksib and his teammates had other ideas.
ENCE swept Liquid 2-0 before beating s1mple’s NAVI 2-1 in the semifinals. Against teams filled with established superstars, the Finns repeatedly found ways to win through preparation, teamwork and an extraordinary amount of composure.
By the time they reached the grand final, ENCE had captured the Counter-Strike community’s imagination. The song EZ4ENCE by The Verkkars became the soundtrack to their success, eventually receiving its own music kit in CS. It was catchy, ridiculous and impossible to separate from the team. Even neutral fans had embraced the Finnish underdogs.
Astralis ultimately proved too strong in the final, winning 2-0. But ENCE’s defeat did little to diminish what they had accomplished. They had reached a Major final with five Finnish players, something that would have seemed almost impossible just a year earlier. And they weren’t finished. In May 2019, ENCE faced Astralis again in the BLAST Pro Series Madrid grand final. This time, the Finns got their revenge.
They defeated Astralis 2-0, breaking the Danes’ famous 31-map LAN winning streak on Nuke in the process. Winning 16-9 on Astralis’ strongest map was a statement that ENCE’s success in Katowice had been no accident. ENCE reached second place in the HLTV world rankings.
The decision that changed everything
In August 2019, ENCE announced that Aleksib would be replaced by suNny after the Berlin Major. The news immediately became one of the most controversial roster decisions in Counter-Strike history. There was logic behind the move, at least on paper. suNny had been one of the world’s best riflers during his time with MOUZ, and ENCE believed additional firepower could help the team reach another level. The roster had also shown signs of slowing down after its extraordinary first half of the year. The problem was that ENCE had never been built around raw firepower alone.
Aleksib’s leadership and the team’s tactical cohesion had been central to their success. Removing him meant changing the very identity that had made ENCE so dangerous. Worse still, the announcement came before the Berlin Major, leaving the team to play its final tournament together knowing the lineup was about to change.
ENCE still reached the Berlin Major quarterfinals, where Renegades eliminated them. It would be the final appearance of the five players who had made Finnish Counter-Strike history.
With suNny replacing Aleksib and allu taking over leadership responsibilities, ENCE struggled to rediscover its previous form. The individual ability was still there, but the consistency, coordination and confidence that once defined the team gradually disappeared.
The following year brought even more problems. Jamppi arrived as a promising young talent, but the lineup never established itself as a serious contender. Coach Twista received a suspension over coaching-bug abuse dating back to his time with another team, adding further disruption. Then the roster itself began falling apart.
xseveN departed for HAVU, Aerial stepped away from competition for health reasons, and sergej left the active lineup citing motivation problems. suNny was eventually benched as well. By the beginning of 2021, the Finnish team that had reached a Major final less than two years earlier was effectively gone.
It would be easy to attribute the entire collapse to Aleksib’s removal. The reality involved several problems, including player relationships, individual form and coaching instability. Still, the decision remains one of the clearest examples of how adding individual talent doesn’t necessarily make a team better.
Reinventing ENCE without the Finnish identity
ENCE made a dramatic decision in January 2021. Rather than continuing to assemble Finnish lineups, the organization went international for the first time. Snappi arrived to lead the team, joined by dycha and Spinx alongside doto and allu. Coach sAw was tasked with building a competitive roster out of players who had not yet established themselves as elite stars.
It was a very different project from the 2018 lineup. ENCE no longer had five Finns trying to make their country proud. Instead, it had an international collection of players looking for an opportunity to prove themselves. When allu stepped away in May, hades took over the AWP. The team gradually developed an identity around Snappi’s leadership, sAw’s preparation and an increasingly dangerous Spinx.
Results improved throughout 2021. ENCE reached the final of IEM Fall Europe and qualified for the PGL Stockholm Major, progressing through the Challengers Stage before exiting the Legends Stage.
That was already a significant achievement for a team that had been assembled only months earlier. But the real breakthrough came in 2022. ENCE replaced doto with maden, giving the team another aggressive option. The lineup rapidly climbed the rankings, reaching the ESL Pro League Season 15 grand final, the PGL Major Antwerp semifinals and the IEM Dallas final.
They finished runners-up to FaZe at Pro League and Cloud9 in Dallas, coming agonizingly close to a major trophy without quite getting over the line. Nevertheless, ENCE had returned to second place in the world rankings. The organization had now built two completely different lineups capable of competing with Counter-Strike’s best.
It had also established a reputation for identifying talent before more expensive organizations came calling. Spinx was the clearest example. Having arrived as a relatively unproven player, he developed into one of the world’s strongest riflers before Vitality acquired him in August 2022.
His departure left a considerable gap. ENCE also replaced hades with SunPayus, while valde arrived to fill the vacancy left by Spinx. The new lineup had potential, but the results weren’t immediately convincing. As 2022 gave way to 2023, ENCE once again needed to find the missing piece.
The second golden generation
That missing piece turned out to be NertZ. ENCE signed him from Endpoint in February 2023 after deciding that valde wasn’t the right fit for the team. With NertZ joining Snappi, SunPayus, dycha and maden under sAw’s guidance, ENCE finally had the balance it had been searching for.
SunPayus had become a world-class AWPer, NertZ offered explosive rifling, and maden and dycha complemented them with aggression and versatility. Snappi, meanwhile, had developed into one of the most respected leaders in the game.
The team didn’t have the same cultural identity as the 2019 Finnish lineup, but its approach was remarkably similar. ENCE was once again competing against organizations with bigger names and resources by identifying the right players and making them work together.
Their defining moment arrived at IEM Dallas in June 2023. ENCE defeated MOUZ 2-0 in the grand final, with SunPayus delivering another outstanding performance. After years of near misses, roster departures and rebuilding, ENCE had finally won another elite LAN trophy.
The victory ended a four-year wait for a title of that stature and confirmed that the international project was capable of more than impressive playoff appearances. There was even more to come. At IEM Cologne 2023, ENCE defeated HEROIC and Vitality on the way to another prestigious grand final. Although G2 eventually beat them 3-1, ENCE had established itself as one of the most consistent contenders of the year.
It might not have inspired a phenomenon quite like EZ4ENCE, but this was arguably the most complete international lineup the organization ever built. Unfortunately, ENCE was about to encounter another familiar problem: keeping a successful roster together.
Following Counter-Strike 2’s arrival, the team began to disintegrate. Snappi left for Falcons, sAw moved to HEROIC, and SunPayus and maden also joined Falcons. NertZ followed sAw to HEROIC. Within months of one of the organization’s most successful seasons, almost the entire lineup had departed. ENCE had survived losing its greatest Finnish team. Now it had to survive losing its greatest international one.
One last miracle on home soil
ENCE approached 2024 with a completely different identity once again. Four-time Major winner gla1ve arrived to lead the team, while hades, Kylar and Goofy joined from 9INE. Alongside dycha, they formed a Polish-majority lineup that entered the new season with plenty of questions surrounding its potential.
Those questions briefly disappeared at IEM Katowice 2024. ENCE shocked Vitality before defeating defending champions G2 to reach the playoffs. With four Polish players and a Polish coach in kuben, the team enjoyed enormous support from the Katowice crowd, producing another unexpectedly emotional run.
Their quarterfinal against Falcons carried an additional storyline, with Snappi, SunPayus and maden now playing for their former organization’s opponents. Falcons eventually won 2-1, ending ENCE’s hopes of another deep Katowice run.
The excitement didn’t last. ENCE qualified for the PGL Copenhagen Major but exited the Opening Stage with a 1-3 record. Changes followed, with sdy and academy graduate podi joining the roster as the organization searched for a new direction.
For much of the year, ENCE seemed destined to fade away from the top of the scene. Then came Elisa Masters Espoo. In October 2024, gla1ve led a young lineup featuring sdy, podi, xKacpersky and Neityu into the tournament with barely five days of practice together. They were among the lowest-seeded teams, and expectations were understandably modest.
Somehow, ENCE did it again. They defeated 9z and The MongolZ before beating HEROIC 3-1 in the grand final. On the other side of the server were NertZ and sAw, two important figures from ENCE’s previous golden generation.
There was something fitting about ENCE winning another unlikely trophy in Finland, led by a legendary veteran and several young players who had been given an opportunity to prove themselves. It would become the organization’s final significant LAN triumph.
The long goodbye
The Espoo victory offered hope, but it didn’t solve ENCE’s deeper problems. Results remained inconsistent throughout 2025. The team had some success in smaller competitions, but it struggled to qualify for elite tournaments and missed the Majors. The occasional promising performance was no longer enough to restore its standing.
In July, gla1ve was benched, with sdy taking over leadership responsibilities. ENCE also acknowledged that it was adjusting its financial investment to reflect its competitive position. Further roster changes followed into 2026, but the organization was no longer in a position to rebuild through constant international investment.
In March 2026, ENCE announced another major reset. It would return to its roots, moving away from the international project and focusing on developing a Finnish core. The academy lineup was promoted in April, and allu returned as head coach in June. The symbolism was difficult to miss.
The player who had helped lead ENCE through its greatest Finnish success was now tasked with helping a new generation achieve something similar. There were small encouraging results, including victories at two Elisa Open Suomi events. In September, ENCE finalized a roster featuring HENU, teme, millert, Schwarz and joeski, apparently committing to a longer-term development project.
But the competitive reality was far removed from the glory days. ENCE was competing largely in lower-tier tournaments, with the team ranked 103rd in Valve’s global standings when the end was announced. And now, today, October 26th 2026, the board of ENCE eSports Oy announced its decision to file for bankruptcy.
The announcement did not provide a detailed explanation, although Finnish financial reporting indicated that the organization had accumulated more than €1.6 million in losses across 2024 and 2025. Its March restructuring had already acknowledged how difficult sustaining international competition had become.
For players, staff and fans, the news was devastating. allu described himself as heartbroken, while joeski said the announcement had come unexpectedly, barely a month after ENCE had confirmed his place in the roster.
The organization that had repeatedly found a way to rebuild would not get another opportunity to do so. And while the organization is now saying goodbye, its greatest achievement cannot be measured entirely in trophies or rankings. It gave Counter-Strike some of its most memorable underdog stories, inspired a generation of Finnish players, and turned a silly three-word chant into something fans around the world still recognize. It was never really easy for ENCE. That was what made it special.
