ATK unveil new South African roster with TenZ as stand-in

ATK have announced their return to activity with a new South African roster featuring Cloud9 benched player Tyson "⁠TenZ⁠" Ngo as a stand-in.

The Cape Town-based organisation re-enter the CS:GO scene after a month on the sidelines following the transfer of their previous roster to Cloud9, at the start of the year.

The new roster features just three players who are signed to the ATK organisation in Rieghardt "⁠flexeeee⁠" Romatzki, Gareth "⁠MisteM⁠" Ries and Josh "⁠bLazE⁠" Saunders. The latter two were part the Energy team that attended the most recent Asia Minor, where they placed 7th-8th following defeats to Grayhound and 5POWER.

TenZ will stand in for the team in the Asia Minor qualifiers

Rounding out the team are two players who will be acting as stand-ins in the Middle East Open Qualifiers for the Asia Minor, Rhys "⁠Fadey⁠" Armstrong and TenZ. The South African player is mostly known for his time with the Bravado squad that finished second at DreamHack Open Winter 2018 and won the DreamHack Invitational in Mumbai that same year. He spent five months in the previous iteration of ATK before the organisation overhauled the lineup with the signing of North American trio Ricky "⁠floppy⁠" Kemery, Josh "⁠oSee⁠" Ohm and Ian "⁠motm⁠" Hardy.

TenZ hopes that this new challenge will kick-start his career after falling out of favour on Cloud9, who benched him in October after just three months on the roster. On ATK, the Canadian will reunite with Fadey after standing in for the previous team last summer before he eventually joined Cloud9.

ATK will fly out to Dubai this week to bootcamp and participate in the Asia Minor qualifiers, scheduled for February 15. And if all goes well, there is the possibility that both Fadey and TenZ will agree a permanent deal with the South African organisation, who plan to send the team to North America in the coming months.

"I'm also playing as a stand-in and seeing how things to and how the team feels," Fadey told HLTV.org. "I’m really excited to be playing with Tyson again as he stood in for ATK in the past, he has so much skill and talent in the game.

"My expectations for the team will be high because of the potential this team and its players have. I have watched Mistem for a long time and we’ve always been good friends, it’s nice to see him have grown so much as a player over the years. I believe Blaze will play a big role in the team and have seen his potential over the years to be a really solid player. I played with flexeeee in the past in Carbon alongside JT before we moved to Bravado. If this team keeps a good work ethic and we set clear goals to achieve, we can get really good results.

"At the moment we have Tyson as the main AWPer, just like the last time he stood in for ATK. When he has an AWP and you give him the space to do something he thinks is good in a round, he can win the round for us almost single-handedly. He really is an amazing talent. I am really excited to see what damage we can do, and we shall have to wait and see in the qualifiers!"

ATK have the following roster:

Rieghardt "⁠flexeeee⁠" Romatzki
Gareth "⁠MisteM⁠" Ries
Josh "⁠bLazE⁠" Saunders
Rhys "⁠Fadey⁠" Armstrong (stand-in)
Tyson "⁠TenZ⁠" Ngo (stand-in)

Daniel "⁠sprayxd⁠" Kogan (coach)