Triumph Gaming has re-tooled its Counter-Strike roster heading into 2021, and it is now looking to climb the ranks of NA CS prior to the next major.
On Jan. 19, Triumph announced its new roster via Twitter, consisting of old and new players. The team retains established in-game leader in Alan “Shakezullah” Hardeman and young rifler Brendan “Bwills” Williams, and added Austin “Cooper-” Abadir, Danny “cxzi” Strzelczyk, and Wesley “viz” Harris.
Following the moving of roster pieces, Canadian player Erik “penny” Penny has been moved to bench, and has already declared himself a free agent looking to transition to VALORANT.
Cooper spent a year and a half under eUnited from late 2018 to early 2020, and has also been a three-time member of the orgless squad Swole Patrol. Swole Patrol was previously led by his older brother and fellow CS:GO pro, Ryan “freakazoid” Abadir. cxzi has been one of the best FACEIT players in North America in recent months.
Triumph comes into 2021 off a very up-and-down 2020. The team won a handful of North American tier-two events, and infamously took down Team Liquid en route to a second place finish at IEM Beijing’s online NA tournament. However, the team lost two of its biggest sources of firepower; first Michael “Grim” Wince to Team Liquid, and more recently, Paytyn “Junior” Johnson to FURIA Esports.
Despite the losses, Triumph has a much easier road ahead of them when it comes to competing at international events, by means of a currently smaller field of competition in North America. Several teams that would be ahead of them in the Regional Major Rankings like Gen.G, 100 Thieves, Chaos E.C., and Envy aren’t competing anymore. While Triumph does have to essentially start from scratch when it comes to their own point totals, the climb back up towards the top is significantly less harrowing.
Triumph will debut the new roster at the end of January, at the DreamHack Open North America event.
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