Our Academy Counter-Strike project, Metizport X, is set to be put on hold at month’s end, as their contracts end on May 31st.
Having held together under the Metizport banner since October last year, when the team had their debut attendance in Suicide Zero Charity Cup, the Norwegian-Swedish line-up is now set to part ways with Metizport. The decision comes from both ways – the players have internally come to an agreement that the best thing going forward is to cease the competitive approach as a squad, and from Metizport’s side it’s a question of the project’s structure and capacity in the organisation that needs to be discussed if it is to be continued.
The current line-up, led by Norwegian 20-year-old Emil “ZapR” Marcussen, has attended 14 tournaments together since assembling under the green and black flag last year. However, the project runs back much further than that, with ZapR being one of the key figures in the team’s uprising since he joined in August of 2023.
ZapR at Level Up LUND!, April 2025
Under Marcussen’s lead, Metizport X pulled in several notable achievements for the organisation, mainly in the Norwegian national league Good Game-ligaen. Merely three months after joining the team, ZapR helped his men secure a top 4 finish in Good Game-ligaen Fall 2023, taking home $1,574.97 for the team. Six months later, in Good Game-ligaen Spring 2024, the team finished 2nd, earning $2,362.31. When the Fall season came around, ZapR stood with the newly formed Swedish-Norwegian squad consisting of Swedes macke & Straxy and Norwegians zame & Brave (who was a stand-in for the event in place of kronkzz in order to meet the minimum-three Norwegians requirement) and managed to go all the way, taking his team to the LAN finals and beating Infurity Gaming in two maps to become Norwegian champions.
The team holding the trophy after becoming Norwegian champions at Spillexpo 2024
As 2025 came around, much thanks to the LAN win a month earlier that had boosted their ranking, Metizport X began receiving various invites to online tournaments with higher caliber teams like European Pro League and Justice Cup, both re-occuring online tournaments with prize pools up to $50,000. In addition to this, the squad was given the opportunity to work with Hungarian coach Patrik “pakesZ” Rozsos, a decision that came both from captain ZapR and management in order to boost the team’s performance. The squad continued attending every event they could with mixed results – there were certainly upsets against better teams, which showed the team’s potential, but the stability was simply not there yet to mount a good finishing placement.
In April 2025, the team attended their second LAN together, 60,000 SEK Level Up LUND! in Southern Sweden alongside many notable teams. Despite an 0-4 finish in the group, the opening main stage game versus Alliance, one of Sweden’s top teams, was a real nailbiter that proved there was a spark left in the line-up – the match finished 10-13, but great resilience was showed from the Academy squad on the T-side, nearly pulling off a full comeback from a 4-10 deficit.
After Lund the team came to a conclusion that it was better to cease the competitive push, as several individuals saw other duties in their lives take over more and more. From Metizport’s side, it was decided to pause the project after the contracts run out in a little over a week from today, with a potential restructure possible this fall, primarily after the main team’s attendance in the BLAST.tv Austin Major and the overall summer player break. However, the structure of the project needs to be discussed, as well as its capacity in the organisation and correlation to the main team. In conclusion, for the foreseeable future, the Metizport X project will be on hold.
With the team having made it to Playoffs in Good Game-ligaen Spring 2025, where the Grand Final will be played on June 8th, the team and management has come to an agreement to play out the remaining ongoing competition despite it surprassing the contract end-date.
We want to sincerely thank everyone who has supported the team during this time. We also want to give a massive shoutout to all the players involved in the latest line-up – no matter what happens from here, you will have cemented your part in the Nordic’s leading esports organisation forever.
As of June 1st, the following individuals will be free agents.
Emil “ZapR” Marcussen
Jonathan “zame” Nyhagen
Max “kronkzz” Gustafsson
August “Straxy” Canavan
Marcus “macke” Hermundstad
Patrik “pakesZ” Rozsos
