IEM Road to Rio 2022 Oceania Closed Qualifier

AZR, Gratisfaction to play RMR qualifier with Encore

26-8-2022 15:06

The Oceanic duo will see action for the first time since October 2021.

Encore has announced that veteran in-game leader Aaron "⁠AZR⁠" Ward and AWPer Sean "⁠Gratisfaction⁠" Kaiwai will stand in for the upcoming Oceanic RMR Closed Qualifier. The organization hopes to increase its chances of reaching the Regional Major Ranking event with one of the most accomplished duos in the region.

The two players have not recorded games since October when they played their last match for EXTREMUM at IEM Fall 2021 North America, where they finished in 6th place and failed to qualify for the PGL Stockholm Major.

AZR and Gratisfaction have not played competitively since October

The AZR-Gratisfaction partnership is most well known from their stint with Renegades in 2018-2019. The Oceanic roster reached the playoffs of both IEM Katowice 2019 and StarLadder Berlin Major before being acquired by 100 Thieves that year, and then EXTREMUM in 2021.

Following the team's failure to qualify for the PGL Stockholm Major, the Russian organization benched and transfer-listed its entire roster. Most of the players have since left, including AZR after the IGL found an agreement for the termination of his contract in May. Gratisfaction is still tied to EXTREMUM.

AZR looks for new IGL challenge as he enters free agency

Encore is the rebranded organization that competed under the Looking For Org name of at ESL Pro League Season 15. The roster experienced international LANs again at IEM Dallas and ESL Pro League Conference S16, but following disappointing results at both events, the team parted ways with Benson "⁠Liki⁠" Niuila in early July and has been using stand-ins since.

Mike "⁠ap0c⁠" Aliferis will be making the step up to the coaching position after years of competing as a player. The 34-year-old's career dates back to Counter-Strike 1.6 before moving to CS:GO and includes dozens of regional and international LANs such as FACEIT League 2015 Stage 3 Finals and IEM Sydney 2018.

Encore's roster at the RMR qualifier will be:

Jared "⁠hazr⁠" O'Bree
James "⁠SaVage⁠" Savage
Euan "⁠sterling⁠" Moore
Aaron "⁠AZR⁠" Ward (stand-in)
Sean "⁠Gratisfaction⁠" Kaiwai (stand-in)

Mike "⁠ap0c⁠" Aliferis (coach)

Lame

2022-08-26 15:07

5 replies

who is that krav guy? some french guy with 0.64 rating, why is he playing for that australian team lol imgur.com/a/oqyNbPw upd. nvm

2022-08-26 15:12

lets go the boys

2022-08-26 15:39

two awps whos going to main? sterling or grat?

2022-08-26 16:28

2 replies

sterling, gratatata was a gucci decoy unless he's a God now.

2022-08-26 17:22

1 reply

he was good at rifles

2022-08-27 01:27

Chinese Savage Pog

2022-08-26 15:08

savage is australian or chinese? O_O

4 replies

Bahaha wtf, must be bugged

Who knows

2022-08-26 15:09

they put in the wrong savage does no one proof-read this?

2022-08-26 15:11

why would they hire a proofreader when users do it for free, LOL, and even then they don’t correct it most of the time. I’ve seen articles which had a whole paragraph cut off left up for almost a week, sometimes not fixed at all.

2022-08-26 15:46

banger

Let's goooo

nice savage hltv

Savage is Chinese or Australian lol ?

2022-08-26 15:10

He is Asian Australian

Austrasian

2022-08-26 15:37

2 AWPers?

3 replies

I'm guessing Grat will be rifling since it seems he's taking ap0c's place.

What are you on, my friend, for me it is clear that azr takes ap0c’s place, while gratis faction-liki’s

2022-08-26 15:53

Same difference. Grat rifling, sterling AWP.

2022-08-27 06:38

savage chinese no?

I think that might be the wrong SaVage

wrong savage

save jks from g2 and make aus cs big again

Ben Savage goat Q_Q

nice to see AZR and jks reunion

god i miss old Renegades they were fire

i would like to see them on the major

2022-08-26 15:13

YEAH THE BOYS

2022-08-26 15:15

Ez prediction hltv.org/forums/threads/2664266/azr

2022-08-26 15:16

Lfg

2022-08-26 15:17

LIAZZ LEFT

2022-08-26 15:18

No he's still playing for order, right ?

2022-08-26 15:29

there is more than one austrlian team my dude

2022-08-26 15:34

EZ 4 ENCE

they are back!!

2022-08-26 15:20

gratata ma boi welcome back

2022-08-26 15:25

Weird no EU team picked up AZR as IGL, no?

2022-08-26 15:26

They just standing in. Prolly to prove they can compete at high level. Jks effect

True. At least now i was tought he could be great addition to Mouz? Even i was watching Oceania Games with Dexter and Grayhound / Renegades stuff there was nothing special i guess they pick him because there wasn`t so much choices. But AZR could make some impact for sure, But... i dont know, maybe he just want to have more relax and fun with his stack to play a chill not going to team being alone and tried to do smth being 29 y/o. If he could go with Gratis then yeah but no idea which 2 spots of any team could be changing. He`s like guy who wants to stick with some teammates not going alone. I`m more want to look old Vox Eminor / Old Renegades type roster to some qual AZR / TopGun / Havoc / Yam / Gratisfaction.

OMG AZR AND GRAT ARE BACK! LETS FUCKIN GOOOOOO

hazr and azr best duo

who will awp? grat is basically useless if he doesnt awp but sterling isnt a god rifler or anything and sterling potentially better awp than grat anyway but grat hasnt played in a while so might prove me wrong

9 replies

azr and grata are an upgrade for any aussie team, they have a shot now

2022-08-26 15:43

Immediately thought the same Yeah, they're two proven AUNZ players that will bring a lot of experience to your roster, but you essentially have two dedicated AWPers now...and your original AWP is younger plus has recently been more active

2022-08-26 15:45

Initially grat wasn't even an awper

2022-08-26 15:47

But he's been an AWPer forever Well, I suppose we don't know whether he's been grinding rifles while he didn't play official matches, but at first glance the addition seems confusing

2022-08-26 15:52

“your roster” lol i dont really care much about teams from australia tbh, i just like any team from any region if they’re interesting

2022-08-26 16:21

Your roster as in "the roster you're on", not talking about you

2022-08-26 17:18

riiight yeah i thought that mightve been what you meant

2022-08-27 00:35

to me grat always looked better on rifle than he did on awp

2022-08-26 18:39

i cant remember enough grat

I used to love watching these guys back in renegades and 100t, true underdogs... but since then... ouf, been sad

2022-08-26 15:36

"its gotta be s1mple right?"

2022-08-26 15:38

Honest to god forgot these two existed

decent but Sterling > Gratata on awp ap0c done the right thing going to coach, should have got valiance in

Who cares?

PL of course creating cringe

2022-08-26 16:00

SUPER HYPE

2022-08-26 15:57

Looks solid

If gratis rifle = good move

2022-08-26 16:03

for taste and more it's encore

2022-08-26 16:07

rip ap0c he is still good anyway

2022-08-26 16:09

gratisfaction was so underwhelming in extremum. Couldn't hit shit with the awp

2022-08-26 16:12

Gl mens!

2022-08-26 16:15

Is savage related to JKS?

2022-08-26 16:18

Yeah it's his son

2022-08-26 17:09

The boys are back

2022-08-26 16:23

Grat still playing cs??? OMG !!!! He is so bad with awp. i want a awp_only-showmatch between Grat and junior. that would be hilarious . firing and reloading awp but no one able to frag.

2022-08-26 16:24

Does he also rock that villain mustache?

Grat is easily better than Junior, and he is better than sterling so it's still an upgrade if he is taking the awp but he might be taking rifle (which is probably good idea as he seems better with rifle than awp).

2022-08-26 17:10

Lets go I have missed these guys for so long. Such a shame what extremum did to the team. 100T should have kept them longer.

AZR:s1mple

2022-08-26 16:30

2 awps new meta

2022-08-26 16:49

The aussie junior

2022-08-26 16:53

YEAH THE BOYSSSS

2022-08-26 16:55

about time ap0c was bad

2022-08-26 16:58

I’m surprised people aren’t more excited about this

2022-08-26 17:21

Emm ok gl

2022-08-26 17:49

gl boys

2022-08-26 19:54

who will awp? grat is basically useless if he doesnt awp but sterling isnt a god rifler or anything

2022-08-26 20:55

Gratisfaction suchca good AWP, i wish he;d get a good euro team

2022-08-26 21:01

all of the 5 of the Australian 100T roster are signed now

2022-08-27 02:37

Actually really nice, ap0c as a coach is an exciting thing, the guy has huge brain for CS but he can't frag anymore, so making him a coach seems great, AZR is a great IGL, and Gratisfaction in 100T didn't look good as an AWPer, but as a rifler he was pretty ok I feel like, big upgrade for this roster, GL boys.

2022-08-27 13:29