One of North America’s most well known rosters is making a change, sources have informed Rush B Media. Ian “motm” Hardy has been benched for Edgar “MarKE” Maldonado, who is being brought on trial. MarKE joined the Extra Salt ESEA page on early Tuesday. The player is set to make his debut tonight in Extra Salt’s ESEA Premier match against Rise Esports Club. Sources were unable to confirm if there was a single reason behind the change, but that the organization wanted to produce the best team they could assemble.
This move will be the second change to the former Cloud9 roster, the majority of which have been together since September 2019 when signed by the South African ATK organization. The first move, of course, is when Ricky “Floppy” Kemery elected to remain with Cloud9 during the “Colossus” transition period leaving Justin “FaNg” to fill his place with the Extra Salt group. Motm has become a cult figure in North American CSGO, known for his aggressive CT playstyle and entrying ability. On Cloud9 he was also known to be an important emotional supporter and was featured several times shouting at LANs.
MarKE is no stranger to the American landscape and has been one of the more surprising players not to have found a permanent home in the aftermath of the Chaos EC decomposition. With Anthony “Vanity” Malaspina, Nathan “leaf” Orf, and Matthew “mCe” Elmore all departing for VALORANT, and Erick “xeppaa” Bach and Jonathan “Jonji” Carey finding spots with Cloud9 and Bad News Bears, respectively, it left only MarKE as homeless, so to speak. Despite an unfortunate online 2020, MarKE continued to show his ability with a 1.11 HLTV Rating, with a 1.07 HLTV Rating against Top 30 opponents.
Rush B Media reached out to a representative of Extra Salt for comment, however they did not respond at the time of publishing. With this change, Extra Salt is now
- Josh “oSee” Ohm
- Edgar “MarKE” Maldonado
- Johnny “JT” Theodosiou
- Aran “Sonic” Groesbeek
- Justin “FaNg” Coakley
- Tiaan “T.c” Coertzen (coach)
- Ian “motm” Hardy (Benched)
