After a turbulent year for Verdant, they look to stabilise as their talisman Tom “arTisT” Clarke returns from his break as they add Mason “Vacancy” Haines and upcoming Israeli talent Doron “Zax1e” Prizent.
Both Andrew “Wolfie” Allan and Matas “Extinct” Strumila stepped back from competitive Counter-Strike going into this year, the former retiring completely, and the latter taking a break due to university commitments. Both Zax1e and Vacancy were installed into Verdant as replacements playing tournaments such as UKIC, ESEA and TradeIt UK Masters, and from now they will be joining the full-time roster.
As noted in the headline, Endpoint is renowned for finding Israeli riflers out of thin air, and nurturing them into the next big thing. Names such as Shahar “flameZ” Shushan and Guy “NertZ” Iluz spring to mind who went from Endpoint to tier 1 CS. Most recently Nikita “HeavyGod” Martynenko moved on to OG from Endpoint.
HeavyGod playing for Endpoint at the ESL Premiership Autumn LAN Finals
Verdant looks to replicate this formula by adding their newest rifler who is 19 and only played his first HLTV official for NOM last November. Currently, he sits on 18 HLTV maps recorded with a 0.98 HLTV rating. Ironically, Zax1e made his HLTV debut standing in for Endpoint, beating GenOne 2-0 in CCT North Europe Series 8.
This is not the first time Zax1e has been mentioned on UKCSGO as in an interview with the Endpoint coach Felix “Frog” Bergeron at ESL Premiership Autumn LAN Finals 2023 he gave the young Israeli a shoutout:
I have been saying this guy’s name forever and FlameZ copied me, “Zax1e”, I had a chance to trial with him and from what I saw he had an incredible presence in the server, very loud voice, very commanding. He is a little bit crazy sometimes, but mechanically he is a very good player. I see him being the next big Israeli talent.
As mentioned, Zax1e has already taken the eye of some of the region’s best, but FlameZ is not the only player. Lotan “Spinx” Giadi singled out the 19-year-old and named him as his HLTV Bold Prediction for 2024.
Spinx winning the Blast.TV Paris major with Vitality last year
Alongside the young Israeli, Vacancy will be returning to the UK scene after his stint at Sprout Academy. Most notably he was playing on the all-British 7AM squad led by Oscar “LVN” Levin. While he was in 7AM the squad travelled to America to compete in Fragadelphia 17 beating Limitless and narrowly losing to EG White. Regionally they also placed second place at EPIC.LAN 40. Vacancy will be looking to build on what he achieved at the beginning of his career and flourish under the new banner.
UKCSGO reached out to coach Ciaran “Biscu” King about why they picked up Vacancy and Zax1e:
I’m so pleased to have Mason [Vacancy] join the roster, he has tremendous quality as a player and as a person, he has fit into the team so well from the very first day and that’s a testament to his professionalism and ability. I’m confident we will see a marked improvement in results with Mason’s addition to the starting roster, I and the players are very glad to have him join. Welcome Mason.
After a long period of time without a confirmed roster, we have finally completed our search for the missing piece of the puzzle. Zax1e has impressed the team and myself with how mature and wise he is for his age and for how well he has completed his role for us in this time. This is uniquely impressive as me and Tom can be very hard to understand for even the native English speakers. He’s got a determination about his persona and is clearly not afraid to keep his nose to the grindstone, which I love. It’s my wish that he continues to conduct himself as a shining example for how to behave as a professional player, we’re excited to see the havoc he will wreak on our opponents for us in the server.
Biscu at ESL Premiership Autumn Finals 2023
Speaking of having long periods without a confirmed roster, Verdant as an organisation in Counter-Strike has had a rough time. Their first roster was dropped amid stream-sniping allegations. And with this year being difficult it is easy for an organisation to get cold feet. However, owner Sam ‘Sami‘ Cunningham still stays optimistic as he says:
We’ve had a hard couple of months at Verdant within the Counter-Strike department, we’ve seen the potential in the roster but never managed to really cross over the line to meet the expectations we all have. With this in mind we had to make changes and in the end we had more changes than we planned for given Matas’ university commitments. It’s taken a while to find the right players to step up but I’d much rather we spend more time and get it right than rush the process and repeat it soon after. During the trial of both Mason [Vacancy] and Doron [Zax1e] we’ve seen the talent and put in some great performances, the first ELISA Qualifier comes to mind.
Very excited to see what comes of the next few months with the TradeIt UK Masters Final coming up and potentially visits to Insomnia and the UKIC finals. Also want to thank Ciaran, with whom I’ve worked closely throughout the process, as his professionalism and understanding of the organisational perspective has made things very smooth and easy for me to do my job.
Verdant will stabilise their five going forward as:
Tom “arTisT” Clarke
Callum “Girafffe” Jones
Mohamad “Ducky” Nourelden
Mason “Vacancy” Haines
Doron “Zax1e” Prizent
Ciaran “Biscu” King (coach)
The roster is complete! Rounding out the roster is the highly promising Israeli talent, Doron 'Zax1e' Prizent.
We look forward to seeing what he can do on the server! 🔥
Welcome @Zax1eCS to the roster!
— Verdant (@Verdant_gg) February 20, 2024
