NEO, TaZ reunite in HONORIS

Former Virtus.pro pair Filip "⁠NEO⁠" Kubski and Wiktor "⁠TaZ⁠" Wojtas are back together in a new Polish team called HONORIS.

The announcement was made through a live broadcast on HONORIS' Facebook page on Monday afternoon, more than three months after the first details of the project had been revealed.

NEO and TaZ were teammates between 2004 and 2018 and won some of the biggest tournaments in the history of the game, including the EMS One Katowice Major, in 2014. The pair split in February 2018, when TaZ was benched by Virtus.pro, and later reunited in ARCY for a brief period before the team disbanded.

NEO and TaZ form a new team called HONORIS

In February, TaZ confirmed that he and NEO had worked through their differences as they began to build their own team from scratch featuring up-and-coming Polish talents. They picked up two such players in Kamil "⁠reiko⁠" Cegiełko and Wojciech "⁠Prism⁠" Zięba, formerly of Codewise Unicorns and Pompa Black, respectively.

Rounding out the roster is Daniel "⁠STOMP⁠" Płomiński, who returns to activity after spending the last three months on Illuminar's bench. The 25-year-old, who had previously played for Izako Boars and x-kom, averaged a 1.09 rating during his seven-month tenure with Illuminar, with whom he won Games Clash Masters 2019 and the ESL Polish Championship Autumn Finals.

"After leaving Virtus.pro I played for other organizations, but I wasn’t lucky enough to stay in one for long," TaZ said in a statement. "In any case, we were struggling with issues not entirely dependent on the form of the team.

"After years of playing at the highest level I still feel hungry for fighting and winning, but I wanted to do it fully on my own terms, on my own responsibility and with my own long-term vision. I did not believe that any of the organizations would give me such flexibility.

"Creating our own esports “home” with Filip we can be sure that we will have the last word."

HONORIS, who have entered a partnership deal with Red Bull, will focus on the men's Counter-Strike team "in the first period of operation", but the organisation's plans go "far beyond" this squad, according to a press release.

The Polish team have the following roster:

Filip "⁠NEO⁠" Kubski
Wiktor "⁠TaZ⁠" Wojtas
Daniel "⁠STOMP⁠" Płomiński
Kamil "⁠reiko⁠" Cegiełko
Wojciech "⁠Prism⁠" Zięba