Wildcard unveils brand new CS2 roster for 2026

Jonno Nicholson
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Image of Counter-Strike player reck competing at BLAST event
Image credit: Stephanie Lindgren, BLAST

North American esports organisation Wildcard overhauled its Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) roster for the 2026 season.

The new-look line-up is the latest chapter in the organisation’s CS2 journey, following several roster changes throughout 2025.

Jaxon ‘Peeping‘ Cornwell remains the only player who competed in Wildcard’s final event of 2025. The pair of Miłosz ‘⁠mhL‘ Knasiak and Simon ‘sSen‘ Solnæs Iversen join the main roster from Wildcard Academy, while Anthony ‘CLASIA‘ Kearney and former M80 player Ethan ‘reck’ Serrano complete the line-up.

The formation of the roster follows Wildcard deciding to move the trio of Peter ‘stanislaw‘ Jarguz, Joshua ‘JBa‘ Barutt, and Love ‘phzy‘ Smidebrant to the bench in November 2025 after missing out on qualification for the StarLadder Budapest Major.

Reck joining Wildcard brings a four-month stint on the M80 bench to an end after representing the organisation at the BLAST.tv Austin Major, where the team scored a top 22 placement after failing to advance from Stage 2.

CLASIA is no stranger to North American Counter-Strike esports, having represented the likes of Gaimin Gladiators, SkinRave, and BLUEJAYS over the course of his seven-year career.

What Next For Wildcard?

As a result of Peeping being the sole member of the previous Wildcard roster, which was ranked 83rd in December 2025’s Valve Regional Standings (VRS), the organisation starts from scratch, with three of the five players no longer featuring on the starting roster.

With Wildcard an unranked team, the new roster must compete in various Ranked events to earn VRS points. This will determine invitations to high-profile tournaments along with the 32 teams that earn a place at Counter-Strike’s Majors.

Wildcard makes its tournament debut at Miami Frag2 hosted by Fragadelphia, from January 2nd to 4th. Teams from across Europe and North America will compete for VRS points along with a share of an $8,000 (~£5,953) prize pool.

Jonno Nicholson

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Jonno is a writer for Esports Insider and has been part of the team since 2019. Over the past ten years, he's written for several outlets including Gfinity, GGRecon, and Radio Times. As an avid sim racer, he aims to provide insight on one of the fastest growing sectors in esports.
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