Chaos Esports Club have officially returned to competitive Counter-Strike with the signing of the former Ben’s Anime Team lineup. The North American organization released their previous Swedish roster in September of this year. They have now returned to CS:GO with a North American team, set to debut at DreamHack Open Atlanta this weekend.
The roster is headlined by Canadian in-game leader Joshua “steel” Nissan, who made a comeback to the top of the North American scene while playing under the Ghost Gaming banner in 2018. Under steel’s leadership, Ghost reached a peak ranking of 15th in the world. They made top-four placings at DreamHack Open Atlanta 2018 and iBUYPOWER Masters 2019. Ghost also qualified for the $750,000 ESL Pro League Season 8 Finals, and later made a top-eight finish at the sixteen-team event in December of last year.
Steel announced his move into free agency shortly before Ghost released the entire roster in June. The 29-year-old linked up with the then-Singularity roster prior to Season 32 of ESEA MDL. Singularity released the team before the season began. Now playing as Ben’s Anime Team, Steel led the roster to a second-place finish in the regular season of ESEA MDL. They narrowly missed out on an MDL Global Challenge appearance after exiting the post-season play-offs in 5-6th place.
Joining steel under the Chaos name is Gage “Infinite” Green, who previously played for Dignitas, Spacestation, and Lazarus. Infinite made headlines late last year when he was rumored to be joining Cloud9 prior to the IEM Katowice Major, though the move ultimately fell through after some controversies were made public. The roster is rounded out by former Singularity members Cameron “cam” Kern and Ben “ben1337” Smith. 20-year-old Russian talent Maxim “wippie” Shepelev takes the final spot on the lineup. Former player Alan “Shakezullah” Hardeman will take over as coach and substitute for the team.
The organization’s announcement reveals that the team will be moving to Atlanta, Georgia, to compete full time under the Chaos banner. This roster will debut as Chaos Esports Club at DreamHack Open Atlanta on November 15th, having received an invite to the $100,000 event after Cloud9 withdrew. The eight-team tournament is headlined by teams like Heroic, CR4ZY, and Virtus.pro.