Less than a month after debuting with Heroic , Gleb "gr1ks" Gazin found himself benched. Taking his place temporarily is Kazakh sniper Alimzhan "Alkarenn" Bitimbay, who has been loaned from Spirit Academy. This unexpected reshuffling has become one of the most drastic personnel decisions of the new season, hinting at instability within the team that recently declared the start of a new era.

Tournament Slump and Replacement
After signing gr1ks, Heroic managed to participate in two tournaments: FISSURE Playground 1 and IEM Cologne 2025. In the first, the team exited early, losing to BIG and BetBoom, while in the second, they passed the Play-In stage by defeating MIBR and Virtus.pro , only to be eliminated in the next phase. Gr1ks himself showed inconsistent form. Despite glimpses of potential, Heroic 's management deemed it necessary to make a change before the next phase of the season.

Alkarenn was brought in to replace him — an AWP from Spirit Academy, who has been competing in tier-2 leagues since May 2024, winning LanDaLan 2025 and LanDaLan 2. He will play for Heroic on loan with a buyout option but will miss the upcoming BLAST Bounty tournament due to roster lock rules — instead, academy player Rasmus "Scr0b" Poulsen will play.

Reasons for the Changes
In an official statement, Heroic explained the decision:

As spring ended and summer began, we made changes to the starting lineup and coaching staff. This marked the beginning of a new Heroic lineup. Our management took several steps to position the team where it needs to be. Now we must acknowledge that not all elements we assembled fit as well as we hoped, and we take full responsibility for this. Therefore, we decided to make changes at the start of the season.
Heroic
This move highlights that the organization is striving for quick results and is not afraid to promptly reassess its decisions — even at the cost of short-term instability.

Betting on Alkaren and the EWC Challenge
With the new sniper, Heroic will begin their performance at the Esports World Cup, one of the year's biggest tournaments. The team now looks like this:

Linus “LNZ” Holtäng
Andrey “tN1R” Tatarinovich
Linus “nilo” Bergman
Simon “yxngstxr” Boye
Alimzhan “Alkarenn” Bitimbay (on loan)
Tobias “TOBIZ” Theo (coach)
Yasin “xfl0ud” Koch (bench)
Gleb “gr1ks” Gazin (bench)

For Alkarenn, this is a chance to make a name for himself at the highest level, and for Heroic , an opportunity to finally find stability and emerge from a prolonged restructuring. The EWC will reveal whether the replacement was timely or if the team faces another round of searching for the "right" lineup.