European organisation GIANTX have announced big changes to their Valorant Champions Tour (VCT) EMEA roster, dropping initiator Emil “runneR” Trajkovski and duelist Tomás “tomaszy” Machado from the starting line-up.
To replace them, GIANTX have enlisted the help of their affiliate organisation UCAM Esports in the Spanish division of Challengers. UCAM’s duo Karel “Flickless” Maeckelbergh and Hanceriuc “ara” Eduard-George have now officially signed with GIANTX. The pair have already joined the team in Berlin and will immediately make their VCT debuts against undefeated Fnatic on Thursday, April 17.
It has been a difficult season so far for GIANTX, finishing 7-8 in the VCT EMEA Kickoff event and are currently winless in VCT EMEA Stage 1 after dropping series to Team Vitality, Team Heretics, and Natus Vincere with a -43 round differential in total.
While tomaszy has been benched and has returned to his home country of Portugal, runneR is remaining with GIANTX in Berlin as a sixth man and will still be able to compete for his place back in the team.
In an official statement, GIANTX admitted: “Our results this year have not been a reflection of the standards we want to hold ourselves at in GIANTX. After attempts to rework our current roster, we are now in a position where we feel the need to make more drastic changes.”
The statement then praises the performances of Flickless and ara this season: “We see the hard work and the performances they put out in the Challenger’s League and feel it could be what we need to reignite our performance and competitive momentum.”
For now, the starting line-up for GIANTX is Kirill “Cloud” Nekhozhin, Semyon “purp0” Borchev, Miłosz “westside” Duda, Flickless, and ara. While there are still a lot of games to be played, it would take something very special for GIANTX to qualify for the Stage 1 Playoffs.
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