After its disappointing North American Challengers run, T1 has made the move to bench Keven “AZK” Larivière and bring on former Counter-Strike: Global Offensive world champion Timothy “autimatic” Ta.
Let’s get to work.
Welcome @autimaticTV to T1 VALORANT! pic.twitter.com/dOLZBLJbXB
— T1 (@T1) February 4, 2021
The American was a part of the first North American organization and roster to win a major in CSGO, emerging victorious at the ELEAGUE Boston Major with Cloud9 in 2018. He was also on the Gen.G roster that took the ESL One: Road to Rio crown in the region in early 2020.
North America as a region has seen many of its up-and-coming CSGO players leave to join Riot Games’ new title. Now, many of the established talents are leaving as well.
autimatic is joining the likes of former teammates Kenneth “koosta” Suen and Damian “daps” Steele in Valorant as tenured CSGO veterans. The former champion had competed professionally in Valve’s first-person shooter for over five years, notably playing for TSM, Cloud9, and rounding out his final years in the game with Gen.G. His last event for the organization and in the game was Flashpoint Season 2, after which he was added to the transfer list in December and eventually made the jump to Valorant.
He will also be joining fellow major champion and former Cloud9 teammate Tyler “Skadoodle” Latham.
Along with the addition of automatic is the benching of AZK for T1. The Canadian has only played for T1 since his transition to Valorant and has played many different agents for the team.
This announcement is also coming off the heels of a coaching change for the organization. T1 recently dropped Daniel “fRoD” Montaner and added sports psychologist David “dd8” Denis to the position.
T1 will have less than a full week to prepare for the next stage of the Valorant Champions Tour with its new player and coach. The squad did have an underwhelming performance coming into the first event of the tour, getting knocked out in the final open qualifying round by AndBox. In the event, T1 also showed off its renewed flexibility, moving players to different agents and roles. While those changes did not lead to a Challengers top-eight appearance, the new additions might be what the team needs to make a push in stage two.
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