In the history of esports, professional players don’t switch from one game to another very often, unless it’s an updated version of the game, such as CS 1.6 to CS:GO. Therefore, in this article, we will recall examples of famous esports players who changed disciplines and take a look at their successes.
Grubby
Dutchman Manuel Schenkhuizen, better known as Grubby, is a legendary professional Warcraft III player. He has achieved everything possible in his game. For example, the Dutchman is the only player in the history of WC3 to win the WCG and ESWC titles.
But in 2011, Grubby changed the discipline and moved to StarCraft II. Manuel had a good start, reaching the top 4 at ESWC 2011. However, his subsequent results could have been better, and Grubby was often eliminated in the early stages of the top tournaments.
Interestingly, Schenkhuizen continued the transition to SCII. Grubby also tried his hand at Age of Empires IV and Hearthstone tournaments. Now Manuel is engaged in streaming, casts some championships, and also spends a lot of time in Dota 2, where he has reached 6 thousand MMEs and the Immortal rank.
Shroud
The famous Canadian streamer and YouTuber Michael Shroud Grzesik’s career in esports began in 2013 with CS:GO and lasted until 2017. During this period, he managed to play in such organizations as Complexity and Cloud9. With the latter, Michael even attended PGL Major Kraków 2017, where the team took 9-11th place.
The biggest achievements in Shroud’s CS career include victories at the ESL Pro League Season 4 – Finals and iBUYPOWER Cup, as well as second place at ESL One: Cologne 2017.
On April 18, 2018, Shroud officially announced the end of his career as a professional player and started streaming. During this period, he began to actively play PUBG and participated in tournaments for content makers.
On July 8, 2022, Shroud announced the resumption of his career as a professional player, but the Canadian moved to VALORANT and joined the Sentinels. He played only VCT 2022: North America Last Chance Qualifier, after which he left the roster and returned to streaming on Twitch.
ScreaM
Adil ScreaM Benrlitom, a Belgian of Moroccan descent, started his career as a professional Counter-Strike player in 2010 and played in this discipline until 2020. He went down in CS history as a player with one of the highest ratios of headshots to opponent kills. Benrlitom won DreamHack Open Atlanta 2017, Esports Championship Series Season 1, and several other tournaments, and was ranked 7th and 9th in the HLTV Top 20 players.
In 2020, ScreaM decided to change the discipline and moved to VALORANT. In the Riot shooter, Benrlitom managed to play for Team Liquid and Karmine Corp. During this time, Adil reached the top 4 of VCT 2021: Stage 2 Masters – Reykjavík and VALORANT Champions 2021.
Now ScreaM is inactive, but it may return with the start of the new VCT season.
nitr0
Nicholas nitr0 Cannella is one of the most successful American Counter-Strike players. He has won 10 major LAN tournaments, and together with Team Liquid, he won the Intel Grand Slam Season 2.
In August 2020, nitr0 announced his move to VALORANT and joined 100 Thieves. Cannella played for this team until the end of 2021. During this period, the team showed good results in the NA region and reached the semifinals of VCT 2021: Stage 3 Masters – Berlin.
After a period in 100 Thieves, Nicholas decided to return to CS and became the captain of Team Liquid again. But frankly speaking, it was not the best time for the team and they failed to achieve significant results.
In the summer of 2023, nitr0 announced the end of his career because he was tired of travelling to tournaments and wanted to spend more time with his family. But in January 2024, Cannella announced his return to VALORANT. Until the middle of summer 2024, nitr0 played for the M80 team and then went inactive.
TenZ
Canadian Tyson TenZ Ngo started his career as an esports player in CS:GO. However, he had almost no significant achievements in Valve’s shooter, and his best result was 4th place at BLAST Pro Series: Los Angeles 2019 with Cloud9.
In the spring of 2020, TenZ decided to change the discipline and moved to VALORANT. We can confidently say that the Canadian was able to realize himself better in the game from Riot. Tyson helped Sentinels win two tournaments of the VCT: Masters, as well as get into the top 4 of VALORANT Champions 2024.
In September 2024, TenZ left the Sentinels active roster and became a streamer for the organization.
Fatal1ty
American Jonathan Fatal1ty Wendel is a successful professional player in many first-person shooters. His career started with Quake III Arena in 1999 and was at the very beginning of the eSports industry.
During his career, Fatal1ty managed to play in tournaments in Quake, Doom 3, Counter-Strike 1.6, Aliens vs. Predator 2, and Hyper Scape. Of course, Jonathan was most successful in Quake championships. The most important victories in Wendel’s career are CPL World Tour Finals 2005 (Painkiller), Razer / CPL Tournament 2000 (Quake III Arena), QuakeCon 2004 (Doom 3 Duel) and WCG Challenge 2000 (Quake III Arena).
hyhy
Benedict Lim hyhy Han Yong started his career in the first DotA in 2007, after which he moved to the second part of Valve’s MOBA. The Singaporean’s peak came at the time when Dota 2 eSports was in its infancy. At the first The International, which was won by NAVI, hyhy played as part of Scythe Gaming and took third place. Han Yong was also the main character in the documentary Free to Play by Valve.
But at the end of 2012, hyhy surprised many by announcing that he was moving to League of Legends. The Singaporean started playing for the Singapore Sentinels team. During this time, hyhy and his team won the TLC 2013 Spring Season and also took second place at the GPL 2013 Summer, Season 3 Southeast Asia Regional Finals, Dell Invitational Cup II, and GPL 2013 Spring.
Of course, Benedict’s career in LoL ended rather quickly, and he left Singapore Sentinels in the fall of 2013.
After that, he had a break, and in 2016-2017, he returned to Dota 2. Only this time, his period in Valve’s MOBA was not very successful, so he ended his career.
ANGE1
Ukrainian Kyrylo ANGE1 Karasjov has been playing tournaments in various versions of CS for more than 15 years and has spent most of his career with HellRaisers. During this time, he attended a lot of tournaments, including five majors.
In the spring of 2020, ANGE1 surprised many people and decided to switch from CS:GO to a new shooter from Riot Games – VALORANT. The Ukrainian began his career in the new discipline in the PartyParrots team, but at the end of the summer of 2020, he joined FunPlus Phoenix. Kyrylo played in the Chinese organization for two years and reached the top 4 of VALORANT Champions 2022. After that, the roster moved to NAVI, where ANGE1 plays to this day.
We hope that we have not forgotten anyone, but if you know any other players, please write in the comments and we will make a second part of the article.
