Rugratz look to grow up with Moscow Five
Moscow Five have announced that they have signed Rugratz ahead of the MDL Season 32 Global Challenge. After being released from Divine earlier this month, the Rugratz roster led by Alex "zander" Diaz qualified for the LAN event after besting Ascent and oNe in the lower bracket.
The signing of the squad comes a few days after the team made the decision to replace Tyler "tweiss" Weiss with Nathan "leaf" Orf due to the former's work and school commitments. Additionally, coach Corey "flashstep" Parks will be stepping in for the team during the Global Challenge.
Although they are mostly unknown in CS:GO today, historically Moscow Five were a relatively big name in the CIS scene during the latter days of Counter-Strike 1.6. The organization notably hosted future CS:GO Major winner Mihail "Dosia" Stolyarov and his now-retired brother Sergey "fox" Stolyarov.
The original iteration of the organization famously folded after the team's owner Dmitry "ddd1ms" Smilianets was arrested by the FBI's cyber-crime unit for running one of the "largest hacking and data breach schemes ever prosecuted in the United States”, according to United States Attorney Paul Fishman at the time. After serving his four-and-a-half year sentence, ddd1ms relaunched the organization in early 2019.
Moscow Five's most recent foray into CS:GO was the unofficial promotion of an ESEA Main squad known as Moscow Five Yankees. The roster was comprised of Russian and Ukrainian nationals living in America, with one of the players telling Dust2.us that Moscow Five did not pay the roster or offer any support, with the usage of the name being more for notability than anything else.
The roster signed by Moscow Five is as follows:
Joshua "Hunter" Madore- Alex "zander" Diaz
Erik "penny" Penny- Daniel "roca" Gustaferri
- Nathan "leaf" Orf
- Corey "flashstep" Parks (Coach)
Along with the MDL Global Challenge, Moscow Five are competing in WINNERS League Invite Season 3 with their next match set to be against Triumph on November 20th.
