NOVAQ headed to Pakistan for OffStrike 2026

Kazakhstani team NOVAQ has been revealed as the first European invited for the upcoming $10,000 LAN tournament, OffStrike 2026. With NOVAQ being revealed as a participant, five out of the six teams for the main event have been revealed. OffStrike 2026 is set to be Pakistan's first international CS2 event.

Boasting of the likes of neaLaN and ICY, NOVAQ are ranked #94 in the Valve rankings and are at #151 in the HLTV world rankings. The team most recently was in action at the Myskill Pro League Series 2, which was a LAN in Kazakhstan and NOVAQ beat Omega to win the title. Two of the more known names in the team is neaLaN, who has previously played for teams likes Evil Geniuses and GamerLegion and ICY, the former Cloud9 and Virtus.pro AWPer. The other three members are def1zer, Pump and tasman, the young trio, who have been playing together at AVANGAR, TÓR and Lewandownskie.

The NOVAQ roster currently is:

• neaLaN

• ICY

• def1zer

• Pump

• tasman

OffStrike 2026 will be a Tier-2 LAN event with two teams from Europe, Asia and Pakistan participating through invites from their placement in the VRS. The group stage of the event runs between March 23 and March 26, 2026 and the final is scheduled for 28th March 2026 at the DreamWorld Resort, Karachi, Pakistan with the tournament having a $10,000 prize pool.

The tournament is set to have six teams with two of them being Asian invites, two from Pakistan and two from Europe. The Huns and Chinggis Warriors have been revealed as the Asian invited teams while Legion and Come Mid are the two home teams. NOVAQ has now been announced as the fifth team, the first European invited team and there is one team left to be announced.

With NOVAQ being announced as the first European invited team for the event, the OffStrike 2026 team list is as follows currently: