electroNic to play for Virtus.pro at ESL Pro League S19

FORZE also announced the additions of smooya and NickelBack for the Maltese tournament.

electroNic made a shock switch to VP ahead of EPL S19

With just over a week to go before ESL Pro League Season 19 kicks off in Malta, HLTV has obtained the list of registered rosters submitted to the tournament organizer.

The biggest takeaway is Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov's inclusion in the Virtus.pro roster after the organization announced the shock signing of the 25-year-old earlier on Monday. The announcement didn't make it clear if they will be using electroNic at the tournament in Malta, but it seems Virtus.pro secured his signing ahead of EPL's roster lock on Monday, April 8.

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Virtus.pro sign electroNic

The star rifler took the place of Nikolay "⁠mir⁠" Bityukov on the Virtus.pro roster that had a difficult year up to this point, as they failed to make it through the IEM Katowice Play-in and missed out on a playoff appearance at PGL Major Copenhagen. electroNic is now set to debut in just over a week, with Virtus.pro set to play in Group A alongside the likes of FaZe, Astralis, and Eternal Fire.

FORZE are another team playing with a different roster due to benching their entire squad at the start of April, just a week before their player Erkhan "⁠gokushima⁠" Bagynanov received a two-year match-fixing ban.

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FORZE bench roster, r3salt joins Aurora

The organization announced it will play with its three-man core of Andrey "⁠tN1R⁠" Tatarinovich, Aleksandr "⁠shalfey⁠" Marenov, and Ivan "⁠SELLTER⁠" Miroshnikov, with benched AMKAL IGL Aleksei "⁠NickelBack⁠" Trofimov joining the team for the tournament alongside the shock addition of Owen "⁠smooya⁠" Butterfield, who will attend his first Big Event since IEM Katowice 2022.

Ninjas in Pyjamas have also employed the services of long-time substitute and Young Ninjas player Maoz "⁠BluePho3nix⁠" Paz, who has been standing in for the squad since their rebuild in March. The Swedish organization has since signed Artem "⁠r1nkle⁠" Moroz and promoted Max "⁠maxster⁠" Jansson from the academy squad, but is yet to announce their permanent fifth, meaning the Israeli rifler will play out the Maltese LAN with the team.

As usual, several other organizations have submitted players from their academy rosters, with notable exceptions being Falcons, who have registered Nathan "⁠NBK-⁠" Schmitt and Laurențiu "⁠lauNX⁠" Țârlea, and Natus Vincere, who submitted Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev as their substitute.