One of Counter-Strike’s hottest teams has found a new home with one of the premier organizations in Call of Duty.
The Daily Dot has learned that American Counter-Strike team MouseSpaz is set to join Team EnvyUs.
This is the first time Team EnvyUs has ventured outside the world of Call of Duty. They are one of the most successful organizations in the game, and they’ll now hope to translate that success to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
While not all terms of the deal are clear, we do know the players would be signed beyond the short term. In the past, Team EnvyUs has provided players with monthly stipends while covering expenses related to the game and travel in exchange for a percentage of prize winnings.
MouseSpaz have been on a searing hot streak during the month of December. The team were victorious in MLG’s first X Games Aspen qualifier, sweeping Torqued in the final. MouseSpaz followed that performance with a defeat of top American team iBUYPOWER in the finals of Faceit’s G2A.com December Cup.
The team made no secret of their interest in acquiring appropriate sponsorship, taking to social media to ask those interested to make contact. And it was Team EnvyUs who decided to make the move.
Should it go through, such a move could be hugely important in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The North American region has traditionally had no more than two teams with the required backing to travel to the world’s biggest tournaments. Of late, those teams have been Cloud9 and iBUYPOWER.
This has created a funneling effect where the region’s best players are willing to leave behind former teams on the upswing in exchange for a shot at traveling to international events with the more established names in the game. This was the case when Shahzeb “Shahzam” Khan left Denial for Cloud9 immediately after his former team had beaten Cloud9 at the ESEA global final.
A number of the region’s biggest esports organizations, including Counter Logic Gaming and Evil Geniuses, have expressed interest in backing domestic Counter-Strike teams. Team EnvyUs has sought to beat them to the punch.
It won’t be long before fans are able to see the squad in action against the world’s best teams, as they’ll be attending MLG X Games Aspen in January to play against such names as Fnatic and Ninjas in Pyjamas.
Image via Team EnvyUs/Facebook
