Six months to the day after Tyler "Kento" Ross joined Mirage, the rookie player has been benched.
Kento had previously competed on several notable tier-two teams, including Aqualix and Kansas City Pioneers. Most of note was his time on Arial Arise, which spanned three Challenger League stages and saw the team finish in second place in Stage 3, 2021.
Kento joined Mirage ahead of Stage 2 to replace the former Excelerate Gaming, Luminosity Gaming, and XSET player, Tomas "Tomas" Kaka. This change initially made no difference, as Mirage finished both Stages 1 and 2 in 10th place with a 2-0-0-7 record. The team then made two more player changes in August, leading to a fourth-place finish during Stage 3 and a group stage exit at the Six Jönköping Major.
During this time, Kento was initially Mirage's second-best player by SiegeGG Rating during Stage 2, though only a 0.90 Rating, while primarily playing Finka. Afterwards, he moved to a soft breach role on which he struggled and became the team's lowest-Rated player during Stage 3 with a 0.88 SiegeGG Rating but the second-best player on the team at the Six Major with a 0.91 Rating.
Despite qualifying for the first Major event in the organization's history, the team has said goodbye to both its coach and assistant coach within a week of Mirage's exit from the Major and has now benched Kento. This comes ahead of the first Six Invitational Open Qualifier, which is to take place on Dec. 3, meaning Kento's replacement is likely to be announced in the coming days.