The Aurora jersey will be seen at PGL Bucharest this week.
In a day for bombshell news in competitive CS2, Serbian organization Aurora may have taken the cake, dropping their existing roster and picking up top five Turkish team Eternal Fire.
Mere hours after parting ways with their existing lineup the organization revealed the Turkish team, led by Engin "MAJ3R" Küpeli, would play under the Aurora banner starting as early as this week at PGL Bucharest. The move took the entire scene by surprise.
Eternal Fire move to Aurora citing "inadequacy of sponsorship conditions" in Türkiye
Aurora dropped the news on April 5, announcing the existing roster — consisting of Aleksandr "KENSi" Gurkin, Robert "Patsi" Isyanov, Evgeny "Norwi" Emolin, Denis "deko" Zhukov, Timur "calx" Sabirov, and coach Andrey "XomA" Mironenko — would go their separate ways.
After a middle-of-the-park 2024 with bright spots at several tier two events, Aurora struggled through multiple roster changes this season. Ultimately, missed opportunities at leagues and qualifiers meant Aurora's CS2 lineup was yet to attend an offline event in 2025.
That's all changing with the signing of the Eternal Fire CS2 squad, arriving two hours after the org dropped their existing squad. "It’s a great honor to bring such talented players under the Aurora Gaming tag," a representative for Aurora said in a press release.
Related articles
Many didn't believe the news until Eternal Fire posted a farewell to the squad shortly after. "In 2021, we took the first step in this journey that we set out with big dreams with our Counter-Strike squad. As a Turkish team that entered the top five in the world rankings, it is impossible to forget the moments when we made history."
The reason for the "regrettable" departure, according to team sniper Özgür "woxic" Eker, was financial. "Following some developments, the fact that the upcoming period will not be very encouraging for our CS squad and unfortunately the inadequacy of CS sponsorship conditions in Türkiye made it necessary to take this regrettable decision."
"I tried to be open for both sides, player and org," captain Engin "MAJ3R" Küpeli said on X/Twitter. "I wish everything was different, but this is for the best."
"My heart is broken, there is sadness on my face... goodbye EF family!"
Eternal Fire has been on the road for 2025 with attendance in almost every big event this season. They became the first Turkish squad to make the playoffs of a Major and have only grown in their consistency this year.
Aurora now have more than enough points to qualify for the third stage of the Austin Major, with their first appearance coming in this week's PGL Bucharest event.
For more CS2 news stay tuned to esports.gg.
