We’ve been silent recently. Sorry for that, I (DuckMoriarty) had an annoying mix of being busy and suffering from an illness. But in that time, the scene has changed a… fair amount with rosters looking very, very different. We’ll start this cheeky recap off in chronological order. And also, if you see the Tweets broken – we’re working on a fix but to see them, just click the body of the text!
February 17th
CeX release znx and promote JamesBT to starter
He's been pretty great sub so far, actually coming to 2 LANs with us this year already! Great to have @JamesBT on board the starting roster now! Pop some heads mate! pic.twitter.com/WB56KLgiCy
— CeX (@CeXesports) February 17, 2019
We start things off slowly, with a release and internal transfer. After the 4th place finish at epicLAN 26, Alex “znx” Webster was announced to have left CeX, with a future destination yet to be announced (see below). His replacement was the team’s substitute, Northern Irish player James “JamesBT” Beattie, and he played his first game for the team that evening in ESEA’s Advanced division. The team are currently 62nd in the league with a 4-8 record and sit 4th in Group A of the ESL Premiership. They play (the new) Fierce team tonight at 10pm.
CeX’s roster is as follows:
Andrew “resu” Robinson
Liam “LS” Scotter
Harry “Nukeddog” Jenkins
Liam “Murky” Smallwood
James “JamesBT” Beattie
February 22nd
Endpoint acquire Serbian players Impulse and aVN
[#CSGO]
After saying a fond farewell to @LuzuhCS we can officially announce our team for 2019 and announce the signings of @CSGOImpulse and @aVNCSGO !
Read more: https://t.co/I7lfDpbPQi@soylentuk | @ASUS_ROGUK | @noblechairs
| @OverclockersUK | @naudrinks pic.twitter.com/TB5I31hw1O— Endpoint (@TeamEndpoint) February 23, 2019
Endpoint had been undergoing some changes from before the start of the year. Joe “Luzuh” Loose announced his departure from the organisation after a long time at the end of January, and the team hadn’t announced a replacement for Robin “robiin” Sjögren who left in November, utilising Tramaine “stan1ey” Stanley and others in various tournaments while looking for a long-term replacement. The replacements were finally found in an unlikely location – Serbia. First up came former Valiance IGL and AWP’er Aleska “Impulse” Stankić, who left his previous organisation at the start of January having been on the team’s bench since November. Joining him is Filip “aVN” Belojica, who played alongside Impulse at the start of 2018 with Squared.
Impulse told Endpoint in their announcement the following:
Glad to announce that I have officially joined Team Endpoint, as their new awper and IGL, this is all pretty new for me, as I was mostly playing in Serbian speaking lineups, but I’m confident that I can lead this team to something big, and bring the UK scene back on the map.
This leaves Endpoint’s roster as follows:
Max “MiGHTYMAX” Heath
Reece “Puls3” Marrs
Thomas “Thomas” Utting
Aleska “Impulse” Stankić
Filip “aVN” Belojica
The team are currently 4th in ESEA Advanced with a 10-3 record, and sit second in Group B of the ESL Premiership with 6 points. They play London tonight at 8pm in the ESL Premiership.
February 24th
ReflexEU acquire NEDS
Happy to announce that we have acquired the "NEDS" roster going forward.
They will be representing ReflexEU in @IGFesports and @ESLUK Matches.
The Rosters Consists of;
@casa_CSGO@m0gcs @JayCMX_ @emyr_green
@wh1skcsgo @GTOmegaRacing | @ArmaGG | @gamergoo pic.twitter.com/X4F4bxwMuj— ReflexEU (@reflexeu) February 24, 2019
Having sent a sizeable portion of the dizLown team to epicLAN 26, ReflexEU have fully embraced the UKCSGO scene and have acquired the roster previously known as NEDS. At the time of writing, they are currently 3rd in Group A of the ESL Premiership and sit 12th in ESEA Intermediate with a 10-4 record. The day after they were acquired they beat the then-London Esports roster 16-8 to effectively jam up the group with the top three teams all on an equal scoreline.
The ReflexEU team are as follows:
Harry “casa”
Morgan “m0g” Butler
Jay “JayCMX” C
Emyr “eMy” Green
Nathan “wh1sk” Alderson
February 28th
London Esports release roster
We would like to wish the roster all the best and success as they move on. Thanks for everything!@ec1sCSGO | @Immicsgo | @AstrooCSGO | @ardiisCS | @frei_cs | @dOMM1337 pic.twitter.com/g4hXKlmby5
— London Esports (@LDN_Esports) February 28, 2019
After, and even during epicLAN 26, there were murmurs of the roster under London potentially making changes to the team. At that point it was unclear who was to be replaced, however there were murmurs that former CeX player Alex “znx” Webster would be coming in as a new addition, and had been seen playing for the team in the ESL Premiership during the weeks previous in place of Ardis “ardiis” Svarenieks. Having picked up the team in November they’ve been extremely successful, picking up titles at the epicLAN Grosvenor CS:GO Season 1 Finals and the ESL Premiership Winter Finals. Their most recent event, epicLAN 26, was less successful, having fallen to THE LDN SLAYERS 2-1 in the final for a second place finish.
The roster released by London Esports was as follows:
Dom “dOMM” Sulcas
Sam “Astroo” Gresham
Adam “ec1s” Eccles
Aaron “frei” Frei
Ardis “ardiis” Svarenieks
Ian “Immi” Harding (coach)
March 1st
Fierce Esports release roster…
[#CSGO] Today marks a new beginning, it's never easy saying goodbye but it's been a pleasure having you all as a part of the #FierceFamily 🐲🧡@kpizcs – @hypecsgoo – @emincsgo – @fzaNcs – @CarcassCSGO#StayFierce 🔥 pic.twitter.com/IQTlRntIsQ
— Fierce Esports (@FierceEsports) March 1, 2019
This is a two-parter. The first part occurred early in the day, and saw a fancy trend of videos start up to announce the departure (and later, acquisition) of teams. In this instance, it saw Fierce release the team they’ve had since picking up ROYALS in August of last year. During that time, they’ve seen some good results, including a second place finish during the WESG Northern Europe qualifier and 3rd/4th place finishes in the UK Omen Open and ESEA Main Season 29, with the latter seeing promotion to ESEA Advanced for this season. More recently however, the team finished 7-8th at epicLAN 26, below their seeded position of 4th.
The team are now known as LFAUG, and the roster is as follows:
Jack “kpiz” Pragnell
Tautvydas “HyPe” Paldavicius
Emin “em1n” Majrbekov
Faizan “fzaN” Ali
Robertas “Carcass” Mikuckis
LFAUG are currently in action in the ESL Premiership right now, where (as of writing) they sit top of Group A, playing ReflexEU in their final game of the season.
and acquire ex-London Esports
We have a full roster change for #CSGO we would like to welcome:-@Immicsgo@AstrooCSGO@frei_cs@dOMM1337@ec1sCSGO
@znxxcsgo #FierceFamily pic.twitter.com/udWgj9YEzv— Fierce Esports (@FierceEsports) March 1, 2019
Just over six hours later, Fierce announced that they had acquired 5/6 of the former London Esports team. The new addition was indeed the rumoured Alex “znx” Webster, and he came in to replace Ardis “ardiis” Svarenieks. London’s roster is as follows:
Dom “dOMM” Sulcas
Sam “Astroo” Gresham
Adam “ec1s” Eccles
Aaron “frei” Frei
Alex “znx” Webster
Ian “Immi” Harding (coach)
March 4th
London Esports acquire dizLown.EU
We would like to welcome our new #CSGO roster!
They face @teamendpoint tonight in the @ESLUK Spring Premiership at 8pm!
👤@KrayCS
👤@Frazehh_CS
👤@Adam9130
👤@kingmezii
👤@L1NKCSGO
👤@break1n (Coach)
👤@hyR0m_cs (Manager) pic.twitter.com/IGCd35xsdd— London Esports (@LDN_Esports) March 4, 2019
The final entry into this roster shuffle is a familiar face, as London have acquired the team previously under dizLown. The majority of the team (under the ReflexEU name with Nathan “wh1sk” Alderson replacing Will “mezii” Merriman) were in attendance at epicLAN 26 and finished in third place. They are currently in ESEA’s Advanced division for this season, where they sit in 16th place with a 8-5 record, as well as being in third place in Group B of the ESL Premiership, where they’ll be facing Endpoint in their final game tonight.
The new London roster is as follows:
Callum “Kray” Knight
Fraser “Frazehh” Sollom
Adam “Adam9130” Ahmad
Will “mezii” Merriman
Travis “L1NK” Mendoza
Ash “break1n” Battye (coach)
Exillium acquire Sensei
(#CSGO)
We are pleased to announce our new CSGO roster:
– @swaggyavi
– @Ping_men
– @ViztAcsgo
– @TotunG_CS
– @GaborikCSGOThey Currently hold a 10-1 Record in UK Open, and 5-6 In ESEA Advanced. pic.twitter.com/4vWeyRd1c1
— Exillium Esports (@ExilliumGG) March 4, 2019
A late addition to the post, Exillium have acquired the team that formerly went under Sensei Esports. The team recently made a roster change, which saw the recent additions of “Ping” and Kevin “ViztA” Kolomainen. The team are currently second in the ESL Premiership Division 2 (formerly ESEA UK Open) with an 11-1 record, and 47th in ESEA Advanced with a 5-7 record.
Exillium’s roster is as follows:
Kyle “swaggy” Wilson
Javier “Ping” Griffiths
Kevin “ViztA” Kolomainen
Dean “TotunG” Grealish
Mario “Gaborik” Piirisaar
Further news will resume during this week, with an ESL Premiership update tomorrow.
