Vitality have completed the signing of ENCE star Lotan ‘Spinx’ Giladi for an undisclosed fee.
The announcement follows weeks of negotiations between Vitality and ENCE, with Dexerto reporting on July 27 that there had been a breakthrough in talks and that a deal was close at hand.
Spinx was Vitality’s primary target to replace Kévin ‘misutaaa’ Rabier after a disappointing season. The French player, 19, was close to joining Evil Geniuses but ended up being transferred to Falcons.
A new adventure begins… We are delighted to welcome @SpinxCSGO to the Vitality CS:GO team 🔥Welcome to the hive, we look forward to seeing you and your new teammates in action on the server during the BLAST.#VforVictory pic.twitter.com/pzBWip637x
— Team Vitality (@TeamVitality) August 15, 2022
Vitality made waves in the CS:GO scene with the additions of Peter ‘dupreeh’ Rasmussen, Emil ‘Magisk’ Reif, and head coach Danny ‘zonic’ Sørensen. But the team has fallen short of the high expectations generated by these moves, making one deep LAN run in their first seven months together, at the BLAST Premier Spring Final, where they lost to NAVI in the final.
Spinx was instrumental in ENCE’s success this year, averaging a team-high 1.17 HLTV rating on LAN. The international team reached the semi-finals of PGL Major Antwerp and the grand final of ESL Pro League Season 15 and IEM Dallas (where Janusz ‘Snax’ Pogorzelski filled in for Spinx).
In June, ENCE moved up to No.2 in HLTV’s world rankings, matching the highest ranking that was achieved by the Finnish organization’s previous team, in July 2019.
Spinx will make his Vitality debut in the BLAST Premier Fall Groups, the first LAN event of the new season, scheduled for August 19-28. Vitality have been placed in Group A, alongside OG, NIP and Astralis.
Vitality CS:GO roster
- Dan ‘apEX’ Madesclaire
- Mathieu ‘ZywOo’ Herbaut
- Peter ‘dupreeh’ Rasmussen
- Emil ‘Magisk’ Reif
- Lotan ‘Spinx’ Giladi
- Danny ‘zonic’ Sørensen (coach)
