Parallax has made their first roster change under the banner, bringing in Simon "Sico" Williams after releasing Sam "jokes" Molan yesterday.
The team formerly known as Trident eSports a couple of months ago, was bought out in undisclosed fees by the New Zealand organisation. Parallax has recently displayed solid results in the Oceanic region, finishing runners-up in the ESL Australia & NZ Championship S1 Finals and winning the CyberGamer OEM Finals, defeating their rival, Athletico, in the Grand Final.
Despite an impressive showing at these tournaments, a roster move resulted from this. HLTV.org reached out to the organisation for the reason behind the change. It has been reported that the team had agreed on adjusting aspects of their playstyle by utilising another player instead, to move forward.
jokes will no longer be a part of Parallax
Parallax will now compete with the 22-year-old player Sico, who has played under many leading Oceanic organisations in the past including Vox Eminor, Chiefs and AVANT GARDE. With this addition, the majority of the line-up will be New Zealand-based.
Williams represented his nation in E-frag's TWC Oceania Qualifier in 2015 and was also selected for 2016 but did not make an appearance in the matches against Australia this year. He was last seen in action playing for Alpha Sydney with current Athletico member Travis "wizard" Richardson, accomplishing a 3rd/4th placing in the CGPL Autumn Finals (the season before CyberGamer OEM Finals), which Luke "Havoc" Paton's Legacy won.
"I am very happy to be given the opportunity to play for one of New Zealand's most respectable Counter-Strike organisations and be part of a team with great potential," Williams told HLTV.org.
"I will work hard to continually improve individually and as a team."
Former player, Byron "Simcore" McLean, achieved seven WCG NZ victories during the organisation's 1.6 days, has moved to a current management role. Here is what he had to say in a statement given to HLTV.org:
"Making a roster change is exactly the kind of outcome we want to generally avoid as we look to move up the Oceanic scene and build on our early, positive results. We look to teams like Virtus.Pro as a big inspiration for that level of stability and chemistry. However, I put faith in the core team to make the right decisions and support the one they've made. It's gratifying to be able to wave the Kiwi flag with the addition of Sico and I'm sure the team will carry their momentum through Season 2 of ESL ANZ Championship with him."
The team is currently leading the scoreboard in ESL Australia & NZ Championship S2 online league with 5 wins and 1 loss. They have also been selected to compete in the Australian Premier Divison for ESEA Season 23 and have signed up for ROG MASTERS Asia's Oceania Qualifier, starting this week.
Parallax's squad now have:
Razmik "RaZ" Bastadjan
Simon "Sico" Williams
Egor "LONSDALE" Baranov
Chris "yellow" McGillivray
Jordan "Hatz" Bajic
Introducing our new fifth man. @Sicoji from Wellington, New Zealand 🇳🇿 pic.twitter.com/Vv3z5aqdI8
— parallax (@parallaxCS) September 6, 2016