Invictus Gaming rebuild their CS:GO roster with four new members
Invictus Gaming have completely rebuilt their CS:GO roster, by acquiring four new members this Thursday, who will join forces with PeiQi "flying" Song, as the longest-standing member of the team.
It took quite a while, but Invictus' CS:GO roster is once again complete, after the Chinese esports organisation announced the signing of four new players, who will fill the vacant spots at the team.
Invictus Gaming re-entered the CS:GO scene in August 2019, when they signed 8EASY line-up. Unfortunately, the team failed to stick together for long. In November, QingHui "equal" Kong announced his departure from the team and later joined EHOME, leaving Invictus with a huge void in their roster, which they failed to permanently fill. At the end of January Anton "Koshak" Platko followed suit and announced his departure from the team, stating he decided to return home to Russia and compete in European and CIS region.
Earlier this month, Heng "EXPRO" Yang announced his departure from the team for personal reasons, while Vadim "V4D1M" Panchuk followed the footsteps of his compatriot Koshak and decided to part ways with Invictus this Thursday, in a bid to return home and compete in European and CIS CS:GO. After losing four of their members, Invictus Gaming were left with only one active player on their roster in flying, who has now been joined with a quartet of new players.
In the process of rebuilding their CS:GO roster, the Chinese organisation signed Peng "xiaosaGe" Song and Lifan "Viva" Ran, who previously played for R-Stars, with the former taking over as the team's In-game-leader. Joining the trio will be ex-EHOME member JiaMing "DeStRoYeR" Gu and young 18-year-old Russian Egor "killmatic" Storozhok.
XiaosaGe started his CS:GO career in 2016 when he joined 5Power Club where he played for over three years, before he moved to Rising-Stars earlier in November 2019. Throughout his relatively short career as a CS:GO pro, the 30-year-old Chinese IGL failed to achieve much international success, however, had accumulated quite a few national accolades, including titles from China Internet Gaming 2016, Legends Series: China, Douyu Super League – Fall 2018, Asian Development League 2019 – Season 1, HuyaTV SHARPSHOOTER Cup Season 1 and WESG 2019 China: Western Circuit.
His teammate Viva, saw a similar amount of success, having played with xiaosaGe at 5Power Gaming and Rising-Stars since February 2019, yet also achieved some notable results while playing as a loanee for CyberZen (later Panda Gaming), winning WESG 2018 – Guangxi and WESG 2018 China Finals, while also pocketing silver at ESL Pro League Season 8 – Asia.
DeStRoYeR started his career in May 2016 with B.O.O.T. and later played for some lesser Chinese teams before he joined EHOME in September 2018. During his stay with the prominent Chinese CS:GO squad, DeStRoYeR won WESG 2018 – Guangzhou and most recently Huya CS:GO Pro League Season 1, as well as made an appearance at EPICENTER 2019, where his team finished seventh-eighth.
Although the least experienced and the youngest member of the new Invictus Gaming squad, the Russian AWPer killmatic is perhaps the most exciting addition to the team. He has posted some impressive numbers while playing for JiJieHao, averaging 1.17 rating in regional qualifiers for several "BIG Events" in late 2019.
Earlier this year, killmatic also participated at WX Invitational Winter in Bangkok, which was his first CS:GO LAN event, where he was joint-highest-rated player, helping Hard4U stack reach third place with an impressive 1.35 rating across 10 maps.
With a new roster, Invictus Gaming will seek better success throughout 2020, having failed to produce any notable results in the last couple of months. Since Invictus Gaming finished second at WESG 2019 China: Western Circuit back in November 2019, the Chinese outfit claimed fifth-sixth place finish at Chinese Champions Cup, sixth-place at WESG 2019 Greater China and ended up fourth at LBET Invitational #2 in December.
Since the turn of the year, Invictus participated at two Asia Minor Championship – Rio 2020: Chinese Open Qualifiers, but failed to make it past Round 4 on both occasions, losing to OneThree.TSG and JiJieHao respectively. Earlier this month, Invictus also participated at Huya CS:GO Pro League Season 1, where they pocketed silver, after losing to EHOME in the grand finals.
Invictus CS:GO team is now:
Peiqi "flying" Song
Peng "xiaosaGe" Song
JiaMing "DeStRoYeR" Gu
Lifan "Viva" Ran
Egor "killmatic" Storozhok
MinHui "sPiNacH" Sun – coach
