Snakes returns to CS:GO to build team with Voltage
Logan "Voltage" Long has announced the formation of a new team headlined by himself and Ryan "Snakes" Amann, marking the latter player's return after two years away from the game.
The 19-year-old star player stepped down from Triumph in March 2020 due to motivation issues and personal circumstances sapping his interest in the game. Prior to that, Snakes was a long time associate of Voltage, having played with the AWPer for three years on-and-off on a number of teams including SoaR, Spacestation, and Triumph.
For those who need a refresher on Snakes' pedigree, the player initially rose to prominence in mid-2017 when ex-Broken Alliance were signed by SoaR with a roster consisting of Snakes, Voltage, Michael "Grim" Wince, Matthew "mCe" Elmore, Jack "xCeeD" Holiman, and Teric "Bibby" Ingram as coach.
Under veteran IGL mCe, SoaR were quick to show their potential as a team, narrowly missing out on the ELEAGUE Major Boston 2018 Americas Minor before qualifying to ESEA MDL Season 26 Global Challenge over Chad "Oderus" Miller's Ghost Academy.
At this time, the top two teams in North America from the previous MDL season would face off on LAN to claim a spot in ESL Pro League, with this iteration of the LAN finals seeing SoaR square off against Canadian favorites Rise Nation. In a nail-biting series, Snakes led the server against Jonathan "Jonji" Carey and co. to claim a spot in ESL Pro League Season 7.
Unfortunately for Snakes, due to being 15 at the time, he was ineligible to play ESL Pro League and while the rest of his SoaR comrades were later signed by Dignitas, Snakes was relegated to playing in Main. For context, ESEA also barred players younger than 16-year-olds from playing MDL and this was prior to the inception of the Advanced division.
While waiting for his birthday to come around, Snakes played Main with a number of other future greats that were affected by the ruling, including Jason "neptune" Tran, who revealed he was 15, and Owen "oBo" Schlatter. He was later brought on by Dignitas as a streamer but never ended up joining the team after the roster imploded due to a mixture of poor management and really questionable roster additions (See: adding Armeen "a2z" Toussi and Ronnie "ryx" Bylicki to a pro roster in 2018).
When his sixteenth birthday finally came around, Snakes joined AZIO's star-studded roster and reunited with Grim and Bibby. This team qualified to ECS Season 6 after adding Gage "Infinite" Green in place of Joshua "Hunter" Madore. The team later went on to be acquired by Spacestation in the first week of ECS Season 6 following the infamous "can my teammates have their bedsheets back please" breakup with AZIO and their allegedly manipulative and incompetent Esports Director Jordan "tryhard" Trabue. Alex "Mauisnake" Ellenberg gave some insight on his time with the team in a YouTube video that is worth watching here.
Snakes continued with Spacestation for seven months while it slowly fell apart due to lackluster results and another series of questionable roster changes. After this, Snakes was finally able to reunite with his SoaR comrades on The Quest, who after a modestly successful year were signed by Triumph. Unfortunately for Snakes and his fans, his tenure on this team was short-lived as after years of failed projects, missed opportunities, and a lack of success commensurate to his earlier years he hung up the mouse in 2020.
Although their time near the top of the domestic scene is long in the past, both players are still very young and have time to reclaim some of their lost potential should they build the right team.
