UK esports organisation Excel have announced that Gilad ‘Alive’ Hakim and Tyler ‘Foxie’ Lowton have joined their Valorant roster.
Israeli player Alive and UK player Foxie join as the team’s newest duelist and in-game leader (IGL) respectively.
Alive is set to replace Excel’s current duelist, Serbian player Dragan ‘Elllement’ Milanović (who has moved to the bench) and Foxie will take over from UK player Oscar ‘Ozzy’ Scott, who has moved to Wave Esports.
A headshot specialist, Alive had formerly competed in Overwatch, and Excel says ‘his experience has equipped him to master his using abilities and hitting smooth headshots’.
Specialising in the sniper, he typically uses the Operator or the Marshal in-game and is constantly feared by the enemy whenever they decide to peek their heads out.
Based in Manchester, England, Foxie joins Excel from Team Queso. He has experience as an IGL and has a background in H1Z1 and Apex Legends, and Excel says he’s ‘renowned for his positive attitude and always shooting incredibly hard while competing’.
Excel’s esports director Tim Reichert commented:
“We are excited to announce the signing of Alive and Foxie to our Valorant roster. At Excel, we are constantly striving for success and are thrilled to bring these incredibly talented players to our team.”
“We wish Elllement and Ozzy all the best in the future and are looking forward to working closely with Alive and Foxie and utilising their talents to help us achieve our goals.”
Excel said the additions mark their commitment to ‘becoming a true contender in Europe’.
Excel hasn’t quite found the right roster to reach higher-tier success in Valorant just yet, though Excel did win the Polaris Valorant Regional League for Northern Europe back in March.
In other Excel news, EE has teamed up with British fitness expert OBi Vincent and Excel Esports performance manager, Ewen Bufton, to release the ‘G.I.F.T.’ (Gaming Intensity Fitness Training) workout, a bespoke fitness routine created to improve the performance of gamers.
The workout, demonstrated by gaming influencer and Twitch streamer, Sunpi, has been developed in association with EE’s Full Fibre broadband.
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.
