T1’s VALORANT team is moving on from both Braxton “brax” Pierce and Keven “AZK” Larivière, the organization announced today.
This news follows rumors that surfaced when Timothy “autimatic” Ta was revealed to be joining the roster last week. In the announcement, T1 said it was “allowing brax to pursue other opportunities.” The org also said AZK would be “an incredible part of whatever team he moves to next.”
Brax signed with T1 in March 2020 as the organization’s first player on its VALORANT roster. Brax is well known for his competitive career in CS:GO but had the opportunity to compete at a Major stripped from him after his involvement in the iBUYPOWER match-fixing scandal back in 2013.
Following his signing with T1, the organzation went out and got one of his former iBUYPOWER teammates in AZK. This was followed up with two more former teammates in Tyler “Skadoodle” Latham and Sam “DaZeD” Marine, and then former Overwatch pro Ha “Spyder” Jung-woo.
Together, the roster qualified for the First Strike main event but fell to eventual champions 100 Thieves in the quarterfinals. In their final match together, they just narrowly missed qualifying for the first NA Challengers event in a 2-1 loss to AndBox.
While what the former iBUYPOWER roster could have accomplished will remain one of the biggest what-ifs, the team has a second chance at VALORANT success with the signing of autimatic. Nailing the fifth player to put next to a former CS:GO star still at his peak will be critical to T1’s success going forward, though.
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Published: Feb 8, 2021 03:35 pm