Sashi have parted ways with Tynan “TjP” Purtell and Jordan “Hatz” Bajic, owner Claus “D0KT0R3N” Nielsen confirmed to Dust2.dk. The split ends the Danish organization’s short-lived Asian-core project, which began only at the start of the month and was designed to improve the team’s chances of qualifying for the Singapore Major.
The move also confirms an October 20 report from DFRAG. Nielsen said the separation was by mutual agreement and did not present poor results as the reason for the change. Instead, he pointed to Valve’s handling of region-swapping rules and the lack of a clear answer to Sashi’s questions about them.
How the Asian-core plan came together
Sashi’s experiment started with the additions of TjP and Hatz, who joined at the beginning of the month. Their arrival created an Asian core alongside Anton “Anlelele” Huynh, a Vietnamese citizen, and gave the team a roster setup the organization believed would help its Major qualification route. Sashi also signed New Zealander AWPer Michael “chelleos” Hawkins, but he was removed before he ever played a match for the team.
The project was built around roster rules and regional status, not just raw firepower. Sashi’s intention was to place itself in a position where the team’s composition could work in its favor under the system used for Major qualification. That plan changed when Valve introduced new rules on region swapping, including a three-month wait before a change takes effect.
Valve also said that teams which swapped regions ahead of the Singapore Major would be disqualified from the Major run unless they received an exception. That exception was granted to BC.Game, who had recently entered the Asian VRS with the signing of Tyson “asap” Paterson. Sashi’s owner later argued that the treatment looked uneven.
Valve’s rules left Sashi waiting
With TjP and Hatz on the roster, Sashi did not produce the results the organization wanted. The team finished last at Stake Pulse Beat III and placed 17th-20th at DraculaN Season 7. Those events were the only competitive outings mentioned for the group before the split, and they came during the same short period in which the roster was still taking shape.
Nielsen stressed that those finishes were not what drove the decision to move on. His complaint was that Sashi could not get a timely answer from Valve about how the new rules would be applied. He said the organization sent several emails asking for clarity and followed up with a request for a call.
According to Nielsen, Valve replied after three days to say it did not have time for a call, but that Sashi could continue by email. He said almost two weeks then passed without another reply. That silence, he argued, left Sashi unable to plan properly while BC.Game had already resolved its situation with the developer.
Nielsen was blunt about that contrast. He said BC.Game and Valve “sorted it out in one day,” and suggested that Sashi was being ignored. His broader point was that the same rules should apply to every team, not just one organization. He framed the issue as one of fairness rather than frustration with the roster itself.
“We had a mutual agreement, and we agreed on it now,”
“BC.Game and Valve sorted it out in one day, so it certainly sounds like Valve is ignoring us.”
“It should be in all sports. It’s preferential treatment, and that has no place in sport.”
Two active players remain on Sashi’s roster
The departures leave Sashi with only two active players: Anlelele and Rasmus “Zyphon” Nordfoss. The organization still has three players on the bench, including Frederik “acoR” Gyldstrand, who played for the team at Stake Pulse Beat III and DraculaN Season 7 after chelleos was removed from the lineup.
The other benched players are Casper “Cabbi” Jensen and Lukas “Beccie” Bauder Balcells. That means the organization still has five players under contract in total, but only two are currently active. The roster structure now looks very different from the setup Sashi had in mind when it added the Australian duo at the start of the month.
Nielsen said the team now has to rethink the project from the ground up. He described the next step as a return to planning rather than a continuation of the Asian-core idea. “We have to go back to the drawing board and put together a plan for how the project should look going forward,” he said.
The speed of the changes is striking even by Counter-Strike standards. In the space of a few weeks, Sashi went from building around a region-based strategy, to dealing with a fresh set of Valve rules, to removing chelleos before a debut, and then to parting ways with TjP and Hatz after two tournaments. The team’s intended path to the Singapore Major was undercut before the lineup had time to settle.
What remains is a roster that is smaller than the one Sashi originally assembled and a club still waiting for clearer guidance on how region swaps are meant to work. Nielsen’s account makes the central issue plain: he believes the company’s responses should have been consistent, and that the team’s situation should have been handled in the same way as BC.Game’s. Until that changes, Sashi’s rebuild starts with only two active players and several unanswered questions.
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