ATK making a return to CS:GO scene with a new roster
South African CS:GO team ATK has announced its return to the competitive Counter-Strike: Global Offensive scene this Monday, February 3, when the Cape Town-based organisation unveiled its new roster.
In September 2019, ATK assembled a roster which consisted of Johnny "JT" Theodosiou, Ian "motm" Hardy, Joshua "oSee" Ohm, Ricky "floppy" Kemery, Aran "Sonic" Groesbeek and coach Tiaan "T.c." Coertzen, however, their journey was rather short-lived, as the whole squad got signed by Cloud9 at the start of January.
After a month on the sidelines, ATK assembled a new team which will field Josh "bLazE" Saunders, Gareth "MisteM" Ries, Rieghardt "flexeeee" Romatzki and two stand-ins Rhys "Fadey" Armstrong and Tyson "TenZ" Ngo. The new ATK roster will be coached by former analyst Daniel "sprayxd" Kogan.
MisteM and bLazE previously played together at Energy Esports, where they reached a fair amount of success, namely the first place at WESG 2019 South Africa in June 2019, silver medal at VS Gaming League Championships 2019, gold at VS Gaming Masters 2019 and bronze at Mettlestate ROG Invitational. The team also made an appearance at Asia Minor Championship – Berlin 2019, where Energy finished seventh-eighth following two devastating defeats against Grayhound Gaming (7-16) and 5Power Gaming (0-2). Flexeeee was a member of Energy Esports from January 2017 to February 2019, when he left for Sinister5.
Rounding up the new roster are TenZ and Fadey, who will serve as stand-in players.
TenZ started his career in January 2017 when he joined subtLe. He later played for some lesser teams including Nacentic, Team BlackOut, Freedom 35, Resolute, Test Takers, Bad News Bears and in May 2019 joined ATK as a stand-in. In July, he parted ways with ATK and joined Cloud9, where he remained for slightly under four months before he got benched and transitioned to streaming.
Meanwhile, he also made an appearance for Asuna's Anime Aimers stack which competed at IEM XIV – World Championship: North American Open Qualifiers where they finished third-fourth. In January TenZ appeared at Mythic Cup #5 and Dream Hack Open Leipzig NA Open Qualifiers, where he finished fifth-eighth and ninth-16th respectively.
His new teammate Fadey started his CS:GO career in February 2016 when he teamed up with a South African team CarboN eSports. At the start of 2017, Fadey joined Bravado Gaming, where he spent the majority of his career and won several titles including MettleState Samsung Galaxy Championship – Finals, ESL African Championship – Season 1, ESEA Season 28: Premier Division – North America and DreamHack Mumbai Invitational 2018. With Bravado he also clinched second place at DreamHack Open Winter 2018 and ESL African Championship – Season 2.
In 2019, Fadey joined up with Denial eSports where he spent four months before teaming up with ATK in April 2019. In September when ATK parted ways with floppy and Josh "oSee" Ohm, Fadey got released from the squad and is now back as a temporary member.
"I'm also playing as a stand-in and seeing how things to and how the team feels," said Fadey.
"I’m really excited to be playing with Tyson again as he stood in for ATK in the past, he has so much skill and talent in the game."
"My expectations for the team will be high because of the potential this team and its players have. I have watched MisteM for a long time and we’ve always been good friends, it’s nice to see him have grown so much as a player over the years. I believe Blaze will play a big role in the team and have seen his potential over the years to be a really solid player. I played with flexeeee in the past in Carbon alongside JT before we moved to Bravado. If this team keeps a good work ethic and we set clear goals to achieve, we can get really good results."
ATK CS:GO roster for 2020:
Rieghardt "flexeeee" Romatzki
Gareth "MisteM" Ries
Josh "bLazE" Saunders
Rhys "Fadey" Armstrong – stand-in
Tyson "TenZ" Ngo – stand-in
Daniel "sprayxd" Kogan – coach
