Virtus.pro Officially Benches TaZ In Favor Of MICHU
By Nicholas Barth ·
The longest standing roster in professional CS:GO is no more, as the polish esports organization announced today that Wiktor "TaZ" Wojtas will be benched from the starting lineup.
The rumor of Wiktor "TaZ" Wojtas being replaced by Team Kinguin's Michał "MICHU" Müller began making its way through the CS:GO community in late January. Many fans hard a hard time believing that one of the greatest rosters in CS:GO history might be broken up. Roman Dvoryankin, the Vice President of Virtus.pro, would go on and announce on his Twitter account that this rumor was pure speculation, at that point in time. However, the move was confirmed to be true today, as the team officially announced the benching of TaZ in a statement on their website.
The veteran player has been cleared by Virtus.pro to negotiate with other teams, while MICHU has been added to the starting roster. It is important to note that MICHU is not a permanent transfer to Virtus.pro, but is playing as a stand-in for the upcoming tournaments in Kiev and Katowice. TaZ posted his thoughts about the move on his Facebook account, stating that he respected the move by Virtus.pro and is looking forward to the challenge of finding a new team, which will not be a problem for a player of TaZ's caliber.
Virtus.pro's Vice President, Roman Dvoryankin, had this to say regarding the replacement of TaZ by MICHU to the starting roster:
"We have promised our fans back in Atlanta that VP will only become stronger in the future. This is a first step. It’s a small, but important one. I would like to welcome MICHU to our family, he’ll be playing with us for the next month including SLTV and IEM events in Kiev and Katowice. In March we will make further announcements on the lineup. I would also like to thank Wiktor for his commitment throughout the years of his time in Virtus.pro. He’s the main reason Golden 5 joined VP, kept playing for VP and kept playing together"
While many are disappointed in seeing the legendary roster broken up, it is not completely surprising, due to the teams' lackluster performances to end 2017. Now both TaZ and Virtus.pro will look at this move as the starting block for a successful 2018 campaign.