The Telegraph has announced the first few Gfinity Challenger Series players who have been picked up by the eight Elite Series teams.
Players have been taking part in the Challenger Series recently and picking up G Points. Now the Elite Series orgs have had the chance to sign the top players in the first draft, which took place last week.
48 players have apparently been drafted in to the Elite Series teams – we’ve listed eight below.
Gfinity hasn’t posted an announcement itself and neither have the teams. When we reached out to some of the teams involved, some said they weren’t aware of the announcement while others said they weren’t announcing their drafted players just yet.
So it looks like Gfinity is up to its old staggered announcement strategy once again. A strategy that initially left many orgs operating in the UK esports scene confused as to what was going on.
But let’s give them the benefit of the doubt. There are eight good teams in the Elite Series, operating in Rocket League, CSGO and Street Fighter V.
Here’s a roundup of some of the players who’ve been snapped up so far (note that some moves may not be 100% confirmed).
It’s also worth noting not a single British player was drafted in CSGO, as most of them were apparently too far down the G Point rankings.
- michi – Team Endpoint (CSGO)
- fines – Epsilon Esports (CSGO)
- Atrosh – Excel Esports (SFV)
- Venom44 – Team EnVyUs (SFV)
- vertigoleague – Team Infused (SFV)
- Alex161 – Epsilon Esports (Rocket League)
- DataRL – Epsilon Esports (Rocket League)
- Reepex – Epsilon Esports (Rocket League)
Infused originally got DataRL and Reepex, but Epsilon negotiated with Infused to bring them across.
This means that Infused have been given an extra draft pick for the next season (so Epsilon will have five and Infused will have seven).
On the CSGO coaching front, Neil Murphy has joined Infused.
Glad to say I’ve signed /w @team_infused as coach! Feeling confident going into the @Gfinity Elite Series! Time to put hard work in #RedArmy
— Neil Murphy (@NeiL_Mcs) June 21, 2017
Lastly, what do you guys think? Do you want us to cover the Gfinity Elite Series updates or shall we leave it to Gfinity?
Do you want us to cover the staggered Gfinity Elite Series announcements?
— Esports News UK (@Esports_News_UK) 21 June 2017
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
