Update (26/3):
Renatus have signed former Scrypt player Ilham "Sunan" Surya as a coach.
Original:
Newly-promoted Indonesian team The Last Dance today announced that it has re-signed with Renatus ahead of the 2022 APAC South season.
The Renatus organization itself only launched in 2021. Based in Singapore, it is helmed by a former Chinese Counter-Strike player, Eric “VGod” Zhu, and will restart operations with a sole focus on Rainbow Six. It also only has one other staff member, team manager Hong Wei “ech0” Teo.
The Last Dance had been part of Renatus from Aug. 2021 to Jan. 2022, with their last roster change having come with Razaan “Ape” Adiprakasa’s signing in Nov. 2021. However, the organization had shut down for two months from Jan. to Mar. 2022, leaving TLD searching for another to represent.
“It was regrettable that I had to let go of all the teams in Renatus in 2021 due to some restructuring that had to be done, but I'm incredibly excited to welcome back The Last Dance to Renatus,” said Zhu in a written interview with SiegeGG.
Rumours that TLD had signed with American organization Renegades had intensified in the past weeks, but a TwitLonger from ech0 had cast aspersions over the team even finding an organization to represent at the start of Stage 1.
Ech0 also stated that despite multiple offers, “most of the organizations interested in the team were evidently low-balling the team”.
In an interview with SiegeGG, ech0 revealed that some organizations had offered the team in the ballpark of a mere US$100 per month per player. However, he shared that Renatus’ offer was “quite reasonable” for a team new to the top-flight in APAC South.
Zhu also revealed that he had been keen to re-sign The Last Dance after the restructuring had been completed.
“I was pretty disappointed when the team accepted an initial offer from another organization and prepared to scout for another team … Still, it appears that the other organization mishandled things, and this allowed me to re-sign the team under Renatus, which I am grateful for,” he said.
The Renatus roster beat out a strong stable of rosters to secure qualification to APAC South in 2022, including South Asians Monkey Hunters, promotion favourites Team Bliss, and APAC South team ORDER.
The team also placed fourth in the SEA Championship, with Invictus Gaming and Dire Wolves in the top two, and was second to iG in the national-level Operation League SEA Season 4. The core Renatus trio had won the Operation League SEA in Seasons 2 and 3.
Catch Renatus in action in APAC South starting from Mar. 17 with the following roster:
#flag@20:id Richard “Rixx” Nixon Latif #flag@20:id Reinaldo “Tolji” Gilbert #flag@20:id Aldi “Hovenherst” Firmansyah #flag@20:id Razaan “Ape” Adiprakasa #flag@20:id Farhan Adinepa