Official: 100 Thieves return to CS:GO with signing of Renegades roster

100 Thieves have formally announced their return to competitive Counter-Strike with the signing of the Renegades line-up.

The confirmation came after Renegades had jumped the gun in announcing the departure of the team in a Twitter post that was quickly deleted.

100 Thieves founder and owner Matthew "Nadeshot" Haag had revealed in July that his organisation were looking to return to CS:GO "in full force". A month later, while the StarLadder Major was going on, he announced that he was traveling to Berlin to conduct negotiations with a view to assembling a "championship-caliber team" with players who were "hungry to build a winning legacy".

The Australian team, who had been on Renegades' books since 2015, have spent a significant part of 2019 inside the top 10 in the world rankings, breaking into the top five for the first time in April. They are automatically guaranteed a spot at the first Major of 2020 after reaching the semi-finals at the StarLadder Major - their highest finish at a tournament of this caliber.

"This is a long-term play," Nadeshot said in a YouTube video. "We want to support not only our players and this team, but we want to help to support the CS:GO ecosystem so that this game continues to have more success as it already has in the last two decades.

"We had a lot of teasers on Twitter over the last few months because I have just been so genuinely excited to be a part of this community once again.

"I think Counter-Strike is the most passionate esports fanbase that I have been around. There is so much history, so many storylines, players and organisations who have been here before us that have laid out the groundwork for an incredible esports game."

This will be 100 Thieves' second foray into competitive Counter-Strike after a brief experience in late 2017, when the North American organisation signed a Brazilian team featuring the core of the Immortals lineup that had finished in second place at that year's PGL Major Krakow. The team ended up missing the ELEAGUE Major due to immigration issues, with Vito "⁠kNgV-⁠" Giuseppe and then the rest of the team being released without even making a tournament appearance for the organisation.

Aaron "⁠AZR⁠" Ward's troops will make their first appearance for 100 Thieves at IEM Beijing, scheduled for November 7-10. Eight teams will be taking part in the Chinese tournament, where $250,000 will be on the line.

100 Thieves have the following line-up:

Justin "⁠jks⁠" Savage
Aaron "⁠AZR⁠" Ward
Joakim "⁠jkaem⁠" Myrbostad
Sean "⁠Gratisfaction⁠" Kaiwai
Jay "⁠Liazz⁠" Tregillgas

Aleksandar "⁠kassad⁠" Trifunović (coach)