Virtus.pro has announced the promotion of Dmitriy Martynov, better known as ProbleM, from the organisation’s youth side VP.Prodigy to serve as a coach for the club’s main CS2 lineup. The move is described as temporary: according to Virtus.pro CEO Nikolay Petrosyan, Martynov will work with the first team for at least several tournaments while the organisation evaluates the arrangement.

Chet Faliszek, a former Valve developer, has described a number of mechanics and concepts that the team considered but ultimately did not include in Counter‑Strike: Global Offensive. He says that during the early design phase the developers explored a wide range of possibilities, throwing out ideas without judging them at first, before arriving at the conclusion that attempting to fundamentally reinvent Counter‑Strike would be a mistake.

On 18 January at 00:29, Team Falcons confirmed their advancement to the BLAST Bounty Winter 2026 tournament by defeating Monte.