Report: Ghost look to shock at iBUYPOWER Masters 2019 with freakazoid
Ghost are seemingly set to debut with Ryan "freakazoid" Abadir at iBUYPOWER Masters 2019, according to a report by Rush B Media. freakazoid was linked with a move to the team back in December by Jarek "DeKay" Lewis of VPEsports, with Yassine "Subroza’' Taoufik reportedly stepping down from the active roster.
Although the Ghost organization have yet to comment on the reported move, Dust2.us knows that the team has been practicing with freakazoid for the past few weeks. With iBUYPOWER Masters 2019 set to kick off this weekend, Ghost have seemingly settled on playing out the LAN with freakazoid as well, with a tweet by the player citing travel woes earlier today adding credence to the report.
The reported move for freakazoid follows a successful MDL Season 29 campaign that saw Swole Patrol secure themselves a spot in ESL Pro League Season 9, only for the team to fall apart shortly after their qualification. The departure of Austin "Cooper-" Abadir was the first stumbling block, which came just prior to the team's end-of-season run. Following the news of his brother's move to eUnited, freakazoid announced his intentions to step down from the Swole Patrol roster following the end of the season.
Following VPEsports' report that freakazoid was being considered by Ghost, Swole Patrol member Jordan "Zellsis" Montemurro was offered a trial opportunity on Cloud9. With his departure, the final nail in the coffin for the original Swole Patrol trio was hammered in, leaving Braxton "swag" Pierce and Edgar "MarKE" Jiminez to pickup the pieces.
The decision to play with freakazoid follows a rough end to 2018 for Ghost. The team had a solid run through the online portion of ESL Pro League, becoming the first North American team to secure a spot at the LAN Finals. There, they managed wins over ORDER and NRG in series play, but fell in their opening best-of-one matchup to mousesports and were eventually reverse-swept by Na`Vi in the Group B lower bracket final to be eliminated from the tournament.
Ghost were also unable to qualify for the Americas Minor through the closed qualifier, being forced to field their coach James "JamezIRL" Macaulay in place of in-game leader Joshua "steel" Nissan. Their unsuccessful Minor qualification was then compounded by a landslide 0-2 loss to FURIA in the StarSeries i-League Season 7 qualifier, with the freakazoid report surfacing shortly after their loss.
With freakazoid, Ghost's roster for iBUYPOWER Masters 2019 would be:
Matthew "Wardell" Yu- Joshua "steel" Nissan
Kenneth "koosta" Suen- Jason "neptune" Tran
- Ryan "freakazoid" Abadir
- James "JamezIRL" Macaulay (Coach)
Ghost are set to go up against FaZe in their opening matchup at the $200,000 Los Angeles event this Saturday, January 19th, with the best-of-one kicking off at 4 PM EST.
