flickz announces retirement

Chiefs member Sam "⁠flickz⁠" Jones has decided to retire from competitive CS:GO, according to the Australian player on Twitter.

During the past eight days, Chiefs won three domestic LAN events in three different cities in the Oceanic region: qualified for WESG 2018 World Finals over ORDER; claimed the LPL Pro ANZ Invitational title over Tainted Minds; and rounding it out with a best-of-three win over Grayhound at the ESL Australia & NZ Championship Season 7 Finals on Sunday.

The sudden news comes as a huge blow for Chiefs, who were starting to pick up the pieces after their 5-8th placement at eXTREMESLAND 2018 Asia Finals and the recent roster shuffle in the region with every major team affected.

flickz steps down from competitive CS:GO

The 28-year-old cited that "at some stage I knew I would have to give up gaming as my work for the family business has been steadily increasing" as he tried to balance full-time work and professional CS:GO for the past two years.

flickz kicked off his career under the Grinny Bankers tag in late 2016 with current teammate Matthew "⁠Texta⁠" O'Rourke, but made his first breakthrough after Dark Sided signed his team in early 2017, where they qualified for the inaugural season of ZEN League Asia-Pacific and ESEA Season 24 MDL Global Challenge.

For the remainder of 2017, he represented Athletico's colours at ROG Masters APAC Finals in the Philippines and a couple of CGPL events. flickz replaced Peter "⁠pecks⁠" Nguyen in March, where he went on to compete at the prestigious IEM Sydney event. Before hanging up his mouse, he had six LAN event wins under his belt with the Chiefs brand.

Chiefs' current roster is as follows:

Matthew "⁠Texta⁠" O'Rourke
Mohammed "⁠MoeycQ⁠" Tizani
Jesse "⁠InfrequeNt⁠" Barker
Tyler "⁠tucks⁠" Reilly (stand-in)

Iyengaran "⁠IyeN⁠" Raju (benched)