Richard “shox” Papillon is in talks with Team Liquid to potentially join the North American organization, according to a report from 1pv.fr. Previously, 1pv.fr reported that the French Counter-Strike veteran would be replaced on Team Vitality — along with teammate Jayson “Kyojin” Nguyen Van and coach Rémy “XTQZZZ” Quoniam — by Emil “Magisk” Reif, Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussen and Danny “zonic” Sørensen. No formal confirmation has yet been made that the Astralis soon-to-be free agents will sign on with Vitality.
If shox signs with Liquid, it would support speculation that the NA org is also partaking in the on-going roster shuffles. RushBMedia reported that Liquid’s Jake “Stewie2K” Yip and Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo were among the players exploring other options. This was further supported by a report from Jaxon, suggesting that FalleN was looking to team up with Marcelo “coldzera” David in a new all-Brazilian roster.
As of yet, nothing is set in stone. Liquid and Vitality are both committed to playing the BLAST Premier: Fall Final with the current iteration of their rosters. It is unlikely that definite changes will be announced before the event, which begins on Dec. 14. Most of these changes would take effect in early 2022.
Shox is one of the greatest French CS players to have touched the game. He is still active after a long career that began in Counter-Strike: Source before continuing to Global Offensive. While shox has mostly been on French-speaking teams, his brief stint on TCM-Gaming in 2013 saw him speaking English with an international roster.
In the past, Team Liquid have fielded a primarily North American roster, with occasional Brazilian players like FalleN and Lucas “steel” Lopes. Notable exceptions include Ukrainian Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev and Danish Jacob “Pimp” Winneche, who filled in on Liquid as stand-ins in 2016 and 2017.
