Owen “Smooya” Butterfield is set to join Chaos Esports Club in the place of Gage “Infinite” Green.
After Chaos EC benched Infinite on January 3, the roster found itself in need of a fifth ahead of the 2020 IEM Katowice Closed Qualifiers and the WINNERS League Season 3 playoffs. A report from RushB media says the organization is set to sign the British AWPer, but a close look says the AWPer has already been added to the team.
Smooya found himself on the outs with BIG Clan as the organization Florian “syrsoN“ Rische and Nils “k1to” Gruhne on January 7th. BIG’s move left both Smooya and Ismailcan “XANTARES” DörtkardeĹź as free agents.
Known as an emotional player, Smooya’s tweets turned positive on January 3. Increasing talk of airline miles, plane rides to America, and a contract emoji point towards a January 3 contract signing. If true, Smooya’s move to Chaos coincided with Infinite’s benching on the same day.Â
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Chaos EC is set to compete in the WINNERS League Season 3 playoffs starting January Saturday, January 11. Smooya’s arrival comes too late for IEM, however, as the went 1-2 at the North American closed qualifiers, losing to both MIBR and a revamped Complexity 0-2.
Fans of Chaos EC will want to follow the Smooya’s progress closely, as Maxim “wippie” Shepelev currently holds the main AWP role for the team. In the past, Smooya’s not being given his desired role has led to interpersonal problems. It’s an odd fit, given that the team cited a lack of growth from Infinite as a reason for his removal.
In an interview with HLTV, Smooya cited his lack of AWPing as a reason that we willingly benched himself from BIG in January 2019.
“I just think personally they would be better with another player to do my role, as I’ve never really had the MAIN AWP role since being here […] I had different visions of the environment that would be here for me at BIG in-game,” Smooya said.Â
BIG chose to wait out Smooya’s outburst and the player returned to the active roster in August 2019.
Smooya’s potential for outbursts makes him an odd fit for a team that already seems to have a main AWPer. Chaos EC is clearly hoping that the leadership of Joshua “steel” Nissan can revitalize a player’s career after it was seemingly stunted by immaturity.
With the addition of Smooya, the Chaos Esports Club roster is as follows:
Chaos EC will start their playoff run in the WINNERS League Season 3 playoffs with a match against Ascent on January 11.
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