European team MAD Lions has signed Danish cyber athlete Johannes «b0RUP» Borap and thus returned to a six-man roster. Johannes moved to MAD Lions from Heroic, where he remained in the reserves since February 2021.
Prior to that, b0RUP spent over a year in the Heroic lineup. With his involvement, the team won several major tournaments in 2020, including DreamHack Open Fall and ESL One Cologne Europe. In addition, after Heroic management moved him to inactive, he participated in HYENAS – an independent team that competed without the support of any cybersport organization. However, after Markus «Kjaerbye» Kjaerbye Kjaerbye decided to leave the project, the paths of its participants diverged and the future of b0RUP remained uncertain.
The young player's move to MAD Lions comes at a not too favorable time for the team, as it has remained outside the top-60 for the past few months. MAD Lions coach Jacob «kuben» Gurczynski notes that plans to add a more experienced player who will fit in well with the team have been around for a while. In his opinion, b0RUP is perfect for this role: «Since the beginning of the season, the role of in-game leader has been taken over by Thomas «TMB» Bundsback, and so we decided to bring in another high-caliber Danish player with similar views on games». Kuben believes that combining Borap's experience with the young players' drive to succeed will help improve the team's results markedly.