Thank you, Panu “p12” Schutschkoff

One of the most legendary names of the entire history of ROUNDS as an organization is leaving the server, at least for now.

ROUNDS CS2 in-game leader Panu “p12” Schutschkoff has decided to step aside from competition for personal reasons. At this moment in time it is unclear whether a return to the playing field is in the horizon, but at least the rest of the current calendar year will be downtime used for reflecting on the situation, p12 himself stated to the org.

Having stayed in the main lineup for nearly four years, Panu has been one of the most loyal servants to the green and black. Many supporters of the Finnish Counter-Strike scene see p12 as the face of ROUNDS, and as an evergreen part of the “old guard” of Finnish CS. Alongside what he brought to us on the keyboard and mouse, he’s also gathered quite the fanbase due to his personality and sense of humour, from the “Panuttaa” meme (roughly “It’s Panu time”) to legendary post-match interview quotes such as “winning is on average much more fun than losing”. He started his career of playing seriously for results around a whopping eleven years ago, and is deciding to take an elongated break from it now, at the age of 34.

The following interview was conducted internally with p12 ahead of the news, and is translated from Finnish. You can also watch a Finnish-language send-off video we made on our YouTube channel.

What kind of thoughts do you have looking back at all your time in the ranks of ROUNDS?

“A long journey and a rocky road, lots of good and not so good moments. [I feel] a certain pride in where we started and where we ended up, even though we didn’t achieve all the things I hoped I would have been able to achieve together in ROUNDS. Lots of bitter roster changes at times when a “breakthrough” as a team had been close.”

Are you left satisfied with your time here?

“For the most part, with the resources I had to offer and what we had at our disposal as a team, it feels like we were pretty close to the maximum. There’s nothing I regret, at least not on my part.”

Should we expect to ever hear more from you in the future, or will the answer remain a mystery?

“Hopefully we will. The rest of the year will at least be spent reflecting and largely in radio silence unless something surprising happens. Let’s see what the following year brings along. The sport and gaming are still close to my heart and I feel that I still have a lot to give, either as a player or possibly in some other role.”

For the Finnish audience, one last time, at least for now; Panuttaako?

“That one’s probably worth asking the fans. [grinning] I’d like to end off with a big thank you to everyone who’s followed our journey and encouraged us. Your positive support has been truly invaluable!”

We thank Panu for all these years together and wish him all the best on his time off from CS. We hope to see again in the future, and will keep our “widepanu1 widepanu2” flags flying in Twitch chat! So long, captain.

Lari – finkka
ROUNDS