​At the most recent Counter-Strike Major in Boston, a ridiculous rumor circled the press room, which isn’t out of the ordinary. It was obvious the rumor originated from Sadokist tweeting about hoping to meet Valve co-founder Gabe Newell at the event.





Anyone who has followed the Valve-sponsored Major circuit since its inception or has been a fan of ​CS:GO for any decent amount of time would know that tweet was a joke. Not even for a second did I consider reaching out to a source to find out if it was actually true. Yet, all the chatter for three days was, “Did you hear Gaben is here? I wonder when he’ll make an appearance!” The finals came, a North American team ​snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, and just as expected, Gaben never showed.





"Sources Say" is a new column that will ideally come out weekly, but we'll see how it goes. This won't be a series in which I’ll discuss tabloid-like rumors similar to that of the one in Boston (though it was useful as an example). Instead, it will focus on discussions and behind-the-scenes developments I can confirm or plainly just feel confident are happening, even if they don't lead to any official moves. "X team are targeting Y player," or "A player has been practicing with B team," -- that type of stuff.





The intention is to take you, the readers, a little more inside what's happening in professional Counter-Strike and have this become a routine blog-style post that is much more relaxed than my typical articles but still contains those juicy bits of information we all know and crave.





With Minor qualification for the FACEIT London Major rapidly approaching, the scene is in a bit of a quiet period at the moment. Mousesports and FaZe Clan using stand-ins aside, the roster landscape is bit desolate, but here are some tidbits:





--Cloud9 does not have a fifth player, though the team has recently practiced with a European player. Odds are that it was NBK-, but actually extracting him from G2 Esports is going to be next to impossible. Word is that his buyout, along with apEX’s, is higher than the amount Immortals paid for Stewie2k just a couple months ago -- which was the most expensive buyout in CS:GO history for a single player. The rumor circulating during Belo Horizonte was that the fee was pretty much non-negotiable. I’m not sure why G2 is so hesitant to bargain with teams while their players collect paychecks on the bench until their contracts expire.





--I’m told the other option is Cloud9 uses what it currently has in stock and chucks FNS back in the lineup as a role player, rather than an in-game leader for the next couple months (like Fnatic did with Golden before ​his removal this week).





--FaZe Clan has also considered NBK, but word is ownership is much less willing to spend the type of money it did for GuardiaN and NiKo. I’m not saying it won’t happen; it’s simply going to take some serious persuasion of management. Cromen has played well enough to retain his temporary spot on the team moving forward, so FaZe has some serious decisions to make.





Photo by Helena Kristiansson/ESL