TSM's Impact roster implodes, Shimmer branding to leave with players

In a surprising turn of events, Lucy "empathy" Verkaik and Phoebe "phoebe" Winter have left TSM's women's squad, taking the Shimmer branding with them. empathy and phoebe will not be playing the remainder of Season 6 of ESL Impact, including today's series against Nouns fe.

TSM will need to field two stand-ins during the rest of the season while also fighting to keep a Top 4 spot to secure an invite for next season.

After leaving Evil Geniuses Gold in January 2023, empathy continued her journey in ESL Impact with Shimmer, a free-agent squad that remains the only North American women's squad to win a map against FlyQuest RED in an ESL Impact League game. As a free agent, empathy reached the ESL Impact LAN Final three times before signing with TSM, who helped the squad during the ESL Impact Season 5 LAN Final.

phoebe came in later in 2023, flying from Tasmania to the United States. The Australian joined Shimmer in October of 2023 and has left her mark ever since, helping the team during two LAN Final events, most notably.

While empathy didn't provide any further comment about the departure, phoebe added that the duo wants to go in a different direction, a vision not shared by the rest of the team. The two players will join Cecelia "Celia" Caton for the next ESL Impact Season. Celia was announced as the new Imp Pact addition after the team benched Katie "gone" Karonis.

With empathy and phoebe leaving, TSM have called Diane "di^" Tran, former CLG Red player, and April "Bungee" Haight, former Karma player, to join forces with Lynn "Lx" Clarke, Marissa "madss" Dasta, and Juliana "Juli" Tosic. TSM will also be holding tryouts to find two full-time players for empathy's and phoebe's positions.

The current TSM women's squad is:

• Lynn "Lx" Clarke

• Marissa "madss" Dasta

• Juliana "Juli" Tosic

• Diane "di^" Tran (Stand-in)

• April "Bungee" Haight (Stand-in)

• Sebastian "Florence" Ogarev (Coach)