LAG finish assembling new roster for ECL S49

Last night LAG announced their new roster for ESL Challenger League Season 49, seeing the organization finally close on a quintet after much maneuvering behind the scenes. With the smoke clearing, LAG's new roster consists of Wyatt "Weeza" Sahrmann, Turkish IGL Deniz "Experative" Mutlum, and Raymon "rayxts" Mando from the previous lineup, while Samet "SnacKZ1" Hosel and Eric "spud" Wickenhauser have rounded out the roster.

This new roster sees LAG pivot back to a majority North American squad after previously experimenting with a EU-majority squad consisting of Alperen "TR0JN" Kilic, Ufuk "sehza" Hosafci, and SnacKZ1 in the closing weeks of 2024. However, with Valve's new VRS rules mandating an Americas core to receive invites to Americas events, LAG seemingly had to switch gears.

Additionally, as the team were recently invited to ESL Challenger League Season 49 to help fill one of a number of vacancies, LAG also had to reassemble their old core in order to hold the spot. To that end, Experative has returned to the IGL role after a brief stint as LAG's manager, while rayxts is back after spending some time in free agency after leaving timbermen.

The new additions to the squad, SnacKZ1 and spud, are set to make their debut in ESL Challenger League NA — albeit for quite different reasons. The German recently migrated to the NA scene after a journeyman career in the DACH scene with teams like ONYX, EPIC DUDES, and SNOGARD Dragons.

As for spud, he is a relatively new face to the upper levels of the NA semi-pro scene, having only broken through last year with NOVUM while also attending Fragicago 2024 with LAG.

LAG are now:

• Wyatt "Weeza" Sahrmann

• Deniz "Experative" Mutlum

• Raymon "rayxts" Mando

• Samet "SnacKZ1" Hosel

• Eric "spud" Wickenhauser

ESL Challenger League Season 49 starts on January 21st.