Elevate has picked up the free-agent Roosters roster to compete in the South East Asia League. The announcement comes two days after parting ways with its former roster from Thailand.
Elevate's new backbone is the former Gaimin Gladiators' trio of Reinaldo "Tolji" Gilbert, Razaan "Ape" Adiprakasa, and Richard "Rixx" Nixon. This time, they have been joined by Matin "SpeakEasy" Yunos, one of the greatest APAC South players.
The former FURY player Chayapat "HealthcareOG" Boonyamanop, who competed at the Six Jönköping Major, and "BarcodeOP", complete the roster.
SiegeGG had the chance to talk with Elevate's CEO Justin "Justin" Tan about the organization's decision and the goals for the 2023 season.
"The difference between them (Thai roster) and a non-English speaking team is that now we are not restricted in terms of who we bring on as a coach and the player pool that is available should there be a roster change," Justin explained.
Justin went a bit further and gave us an example of how the language barrier can affect a team's performance.
"When we tried to implement LaXInG as the coach in Stage 3, we saw the struggles of an English coach working with a non-English speaking team. Timeouts were inefficient as the first half would be LaXInG communicating to Onigiri and Onigiri would have to relay the message to the team. When it came to finding a new fifth for Onigiri, it was hard to find someone that speaks Thai."
This was reflected in Elevate's official statement when it released its Thai team, stating that "having an English-speaking team provides us with more flexibility."
With English as the new main language in Elevate, it was easier to find a good staff team. The former Gaimin Gladiator coach Ilham "Sunan" Surya has joined Elevate as the team's new coach. Meanwhile, the former CYCLOPS athlete gaming coach Riccardo "Hybrid" Font has joined as Elevate's new analyst.
When talking about the goals for this season, the team wants "to place as high as possible in the SEA league and make the Major." However, Justin is aware of the difficulties of creating a roster from scratch.
"Just like any other new team, developing chemistry and expanding the map pool is important."
The South East Asian league will kick off in just two days.
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