After the first rumors, former CS:GO pro Jeghor “markeloff” Markelov has finally confirmed that he will become the ambassador of the German organization ESC Gaming. Allegedly, they plan to sign players Vlаdуslаv “bondik” Nеchуроrchuk and Ioann “Edward” Sukharjev for the team in the nearest future. markeloff has promised to reveal more about it soon. Here’s everything that’s known about the rumors so far.
A legend returns
The organization ESC has announced that the 1.6 legend markeloff will be joining them in a short video. His role will be “esports ambassador” a fitting role for someone as well known as him. Some time ago, a fellow Ukrainian player bondik, who is in the same team as Edward, said that the AWP legend markeloff will return “He won’t be a player, but he will be directly connected to Edward and me. markeloff? It looks like you will all be seeing him soon. There is something interesting to report from markeloff, some news.”
All of it points towards Edward and bondik joining forces to return to the scene with a new lineup under the ESC Banner. On March 22, markeloff had thanked Counter-Strike on Twitter for giving him access to the CS2 beta. At that time he already hinted that we can expect more from him in the near future. Finally, confirmation also came on his Twitter channel two days ago that he will be a content creator and ambassador for ESC Gaming.
markeloff’s legacy
Sadly markeloff said goodbye to the CS:GO community in 2018, he was part of NaVi for a long time and then changed to Astana Dragons before joining Flipsid3 Tactics with B1ad3 and also playing with Oleksandr ‘s1mple’ Kostyljev and Denis ‘electronic’ Sharipov at the time. All three of them are now part of Natus Vincere and even recently won a Major. ESC Gaming on the other hand have had the most success in CS1.6 when Filip “NEO” Kubski and Wiktor “TaZ” Wojtas were the star duo of the Golden Five polish lineup at the time.
Big thanks to @counterstrike for giving me the opportunity to test #CS2!
There will be more surprises in the near future for all of you! Keep your eyes opened and stay focused on my social media.
— Yegor Markelov (@YegorMarkeloff) March 22, 2023
They switched to Virtus.pro later on and also became CS:GO Major winners. So the mixture of markeloff and ESC would be a very good one. ESC itself wasn’t very successful in CS:GO but they kept fielding teams and were faithful to the community, so it is very interesting to see them sign such a high profile personality like markeloff.
Markeloff hasn’t been streaming and has only popped up in the CS world for showmatches or brief commentary from time to time. We’re excited to see what we can expect from him next!