The benches tonight (front row = tonight's featured guests)
(fanfare. Weekend Warrior is holding a library card.)
Livewire: Welcome to The Benches. Tonight's theme: borrowed players. Loans, stand-ins, trials. People playing the biggest matches of their lives in shirts that weren't really theirs.
Weekend Warrior: I brought my library card because I assume it works the same way.
The Prosecutor: It does not work the same way. Nothing about this works the same way. That's why I'm here.
Livewire: Roll the tape before anyone explains contracts.
▶ THE TAPE Case #1: the Kraków final, played with borrowed players
October 12, 2016: Gambit sign HObbit on a six-month loan from Kazakh team Tengri, the same day they sign Zeus. The loan is still running on July 23, 2017, when Gambit win the PGL Kraków Major. Gambit buy out his Tengri contract on August 2, ten days after the trophy.1
The runner-up had the same setup. Brazil's kNgV- was on loan to Immortals from Red Reserve from May 24 to July 25, 2017, and signed permanently two days after the final.1
THE MAJOR FINAL: BOTH TEAMS HAD A PLAYER ON LOAN
The Prosecutor: So the Major was won by a player whose contract belonged to another team, and bought ten days later. The trophy arrived before the paperwork.
Weekend Warrior: Okay, but did they have to give him back if they lost?
Footnote: Nobody tested that. They won.
Weekend Warrior: Then honestly, great loan.
Livewire: HObbit is holding the trophy. Technically, whose trophy is he holding?
The Prosecutor: Gambit's. I checked. I checked it twice. I'm still not happy about it.
▶ THE TAPE Case #2: the greatest player alive, on loan
October 2023: s1mple, the most decorated player of the CS:GO era, steps away from NaVi's active lineup. What follows is a year of temporary jerseys.2
Loaned to Falcons (September 27 - November 21, 2024). Loaned to FaZe for the Austin Major (May 5 - July 9, 2025), where they finish 5-8. Then sold to BC.Game on July 28, 2025.2
Dusty: The best player I've ever watched, playing a Major in a borrowed shirt. It's like seeing your old teacher working at a grocery store. Nothing wrong with it. You just feel it.
Livewire: Dusty, that was almost a poem.
Dusty: Don't air it.
(It was aired.)
Stand-in corner: the people who got the call
Stazione's research counted 46 stand-in, loan or trial appearances in Valve Major history.3 Livewire reads the best ones off a cue card while the guests react.
▶ THE TAPE Speed tape: the stand-ins
fox, the Portuguese 1.6 veteran, stood in for SK's Brazilians at Atlanta 2017 and reached the semifinal.
AdreN stood in for FaZe at Katowice 2019 (5-8), then reached the Berlin 2019 final with AVANGAR seven months later.
Zellsis, later a VALORANT star, played Katowice 2019 on trial for Cloud9. YEKINDAR stood in for FURIA at Austin 2025 and was signed for good afterward.3
▶ THE TAPE The best one: Taiwan's first Major player
Marek, from Taiwan, had been playing since 2014. In August 2025 he joined China's Rare Atom as assistant coach. In October he was moved to stand-in. And he played the StarLadder Budapest Major, finishing 31st-32nd.4
He is the only Taiwanese player on any Valve Major roster in our data. More than a decade of career, and his one Major happened because he was the closest person to the server.
Sunshine: He went to work as a coach and came home a Major player! That's the dream! That's literally the dream!
The Prosecutor: For once I have no objection. I'd like it noted that I have no objection.
Livewire: Noted. Frame the objection that isn't there.
FLIP BOARD · Weekend Warrior presents: How a loan works (by me, after this episode)
Weekend Warrior: I didn't know how loans worked at the start of this episode and I just won the loan challenge. I still don't know how loans work.
Footnote: That's also true of several organizations in the data.
Still being written
s1mple is at BC.Game. In June 2026, the Ukrainian Esports Federation banned him for 12 months, until June 30, 2027, for playing alongside a Russian player there. The ban covers federation events only; international play is unaffected.5 (The wider story is next episode.) The guests write their wishes.
HOPES BOARD · for a story that's still being written
s1mple after the loans: BC.Game, and a ban that runs to June 30, 2027
Dusty: One more real run, in a shirt that's actually his. That's all I want.
The Ledger: Enough maps in one place for his numbers to mean something again. Loans ruin sample sizes.
Sunshine: That he's having FUN. Whatever jersey. Whatever event. Just fun.
The Prosecutor: That every rule that affects him is written down before it's enforced. That's it. That's the whole strip.
Weekend Warrior: That he never has to find out how loans work either.
Footnote: That the next line in his timeline is about a match, not a document.
Line of the night
"The trophy arrived before the paperwork."
— The Prosecutor (the Prosecutor asked for it to be entered into evidence)
Next time: a different kind of episode. The World Outside the Server. A cancelled Major, a war, a federation banning its own greatest player, and a Saudi-owned team winning a Saudi-owned organizer's Major. Livewire has asked for the captions to be turned down.
Footnote's footnotes (every "ding!" in tonight's episode, sourced)
- HObbit's Tengri loan (Oct 12, 2016), Kraków title (July 23, 2017), buyout (Aug 2, 2017); kNgV-'s loan to Immortals (May 24 - July 25, 2017). Liquipedia: HObbit · Liquipedia: kNgV- · Liquipedia: Gambit Esports
- s1mple: stepped away Oct 26, 2023; loans to Falcons (Sept 27 - Nov 21, 2024) and FaZe (May 5 - July 9, 2025); sold to BC.Game July 28, 2025. Liquipedia: s1mple
- 46 stand-in/loan/trial Major appearances (Stazione scan of Liquipedia career timelines); fox, AdreN, Zellsis, YEKINDAR examples. Liquipedia: ELEAGUE Atlanta 2017 · Liquipedia: YEKINDAR
- Marek: Rare Atom assistant coach (Aug 2025), stand-in (Oct 9 - Dec 10, 2025), StarLadder Budapest 2025 (31st-32nd). Liquipedia: Marek · Liquipedia: StarLadder Budapest 2025
- UESF ban of s1mple: 12 months to June 30, 2027, federation events only. Dust2.us · Liquipedia: Banned Players/Other
- Challenge mechanics: kill rewards by weapon class and their exceptions. Stazione: Money is the second scoreboard · Hotspawn
Liquipedia content is used under CC-BY-SA 3.0. The panelists are fictional archetypes; every fact they cite is real and checked.
Worth arguing about: is borrowing a player for a Major smart roster-building or a loophole?
Argue it out in the discussion thread. That's where this actually gets resolved.
The Benches · season one