The French star leaves Team Vitality after three years.

 

North American esports organisation Team Liquid have revealed the fourth player of their CS:GO roster for 2022 after announcing that Richard ‘shox‘ Papillon will be joining them for the 2022 season.

The transfer news doesn’t come as a surprise, given the French star was linked with a move to Liquid back in November. After it was announced that Vitality would be signing the Astralis duo of Peter ‘dupreeh‘ Rasmussen and Emil ‘Magisk’ Reif, it became clear that shox would be leaving the French team.

A Counter-Strike icon, shox has been competing at the highest level of the sport since 2006 and is one of the most decorated players in the sport’s history. shox had signed for Vitality back in 2019 from G2 and enjoyed relative success with the French team, winning the EPICENTER 2019, BLAST Premier Fall 2020 and the IEM Winter 2021.

A Major champion with LDLC in 2014, shox‘s move to Team Liquid will be the veteran’s first international move since his short stint with TCM-Gaming in 2013.

Team Liquid, on the other hand, will hope the signing of an experienced superstar will help them claw back to the top of the sport after a disappointing 2021, which saw them take home only one trophy at the ‘cs_summit 8’. Plagued with internal issues, Liquid had announced that Michael “?Grim?” Wince, Gabriel “?FalleN?” Toledo and Jake “?Stewie2K?” Yip would be leaving the team and most recently had announced the signing of Josh “oSee” Ohm.

 

The Liquid roster now consists of:

• Jonathan “?EliGE?” Jablonowski
• Keith “?NAF?” Markovic
• Josh “?oSee?” Ohm
• Richard “?shox?” Papillon

 

Former Liquid player Nick ‘nitr0’ Cannella is expected to complete the line-up, with the American reported to return to Liquid’s CS:GO roster after a brief career in VALORANT.

Elsewhere in the transfer season, MOUZ have released ‘ropz‘, who is reported to sign with FAZE, and German team BIG have signed ‘faveN’.

The CS:GO scene returns in February with IEM Katowice 2022.