T1 signed Braxton "Brax" Pierce, eight months ago, to lead their VALORANT team. This contract marked a spiritual comeback for Brax who was effectively sacked by CS:GO due to the infamous iBuyPower match-fixing scandal and his subsequent Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) ban put a ceiling on his ambitions.
He was not alone, Keven "AZK" Larivière, who was a teammate of the Brax’s team at iBuyPower and also put through a ban, has also found a potential comeback in VALORANT- T1 team.
T1 initially had good results in VALORANT, including qualifying for the VALORANT First Strike (VFS) main event, reaching the quarter-finals, where they were defeated by 100Thieves, who then won the tournament. But the team was never convinced and the writing was on the wall after failing to qualify for the main event of the inaugural VALORANT Champions Tour (VCT) event.
Now the Korean organization, T1 has decided to drop both Brax and AZK from the team as they look for new talent to take them through the professional events in 2021. T1 announced the decision on its Twitter handle.
Today we say our goodbyes to @brax1wnl and @AZKcs_.
— T1 (@T1) February 8, 2021
Thank you for being such an integral part of T1 VALORANT - best of luck in your future endeavours & we'll see you on the server! pic.twitter.com/maNryDGNxl
David Denis, T1's Valorant head coach thanked both players for their service and explained that a change is needed to move the team forward. T1 announced the signing of Timothy "autimatic" Ta on February 4th, 2021. He is one of the best CS: GO player from North America, who has officially moved to VALORANT. He will be reunited with Tyler "Skadoodle" Latham, the previous teammate from Cloud9.
Let's get to work.
— T1 (@T1) February 4, 2021
Welcome @autimaticTV to T1 VALORANT! pic.twitter.com/dOLZBLJbXB
