On August 28th, after being under contract for a year, 7AM did not renew their contracts with their UK roster. In a statement they wrote that they would “re-evaluate our options as a business” and it was unclear if they ever would return to UK Counter-Strike.
However, the organisation have arrived back into the European CS scene, picking up a roster which is aiming for HLTV top 30.
Orchestrated by James “bevve” Slinn, who has recently joined the ITB Pipeline, the idea all came from winning the UKIC CeX Summer Invitational with JACK3D. After they won the tournament, the core of the team wished to stick together and immediately started searching for an organisation. Since Alfred “Rusty” Karlsson had offers elsewhere they needed to find a stable fifth, first deciding to search for either an IGL or an anchor which, if they would have gone for an anchor, either Sean “eraa” or William “dobbo” Dobson would absorb the IGL role.
After messaging 7AM, the organisation noted that Oscar “LVN” Levin was still on the roster and they would be rebuilding around him.
Unfortunately, shortly after this, Rory “cryths” Ursell left for his new job and alongside that, they lost both Kalle “Ro1f” Johansson and eraa due to uncertainty with NIP Youngsters. And with that, the roster was left with bevve, LVN and dobbo.
As anyone can imagine, this was a very rough start to the teams story. The roster had the backing of an organisation which is normally the struggle, but went through a tough period facing constant setbacks, leaving them in need of an AWP and solid anchor/support.
Their AWPER came in the form of Dimitriy “SENSEi” Shvorak. bevve had played with him in FPL-C and it felt like there had always been natural chemistry in the game. bevve commented:
Probably in my entire time of CS (pugs, mixes, teams) he’s the awper I see eye to eye on how these high impact positions should be played.
Simultaneously, they started trailing Ivan “choiv7” Zivkovic, who has most recently been the IGL of iNation, however as he was taking a step back from the IGL role, he would have been their anchor, but unfortunately, this would not be the case.
These are two big signings that almost felt unrealistic to acquire, but with bevve taking a shot and understanding he had nothing to lose, they started to practice and get a feel for the others.
Sadly their theme of setbacks continued, as LVN informed the team that he was going to join GamerLegion as their new academy team coach, and they are once again trying to fill a void left by a player leaving. Finding a new IGL that is experienced can be difficult, but luckily for this squad they had choiv7, who was currently playing anchor positions. Having already showed he was a proficient IGL leading iNation to the Blast.TV Paris RMRs, he would be convinced to call again after LVN left.
Even though they had only been searching for a final member for almost two days after filling the gap, it didn’t take long to find their fifth. The squad was informed that Ro1f and eraa would be free agents after their project failed, and from their own experiences with Ro1f, it was very easy to vouch for him.
After many setbacks and players coming in and out of the lineup, bevve has built this new squad with 7AM that is looking to cause some havoc internationally.
The new 7AM roster looks as such:
James “bevve” Slinn
William “dobbo” Dobson
Dimitriy “SENSEi” Shvorak
Ivan “choiv7” Zivkovic
Kalle “Ro1f” Johansson
Dropping a big announcement on a Friday night? Why not?
Introducing our new CS2 roster
– @SENSEiUA
– @choiv7cs
– @dobbocs
– @Ro1fCSGO
– @bevvexyz
Welcome! #7AMWIN pic.twitter.com/lYbqs7xijU
— #ESLOL SUMMER CHAMPIONS (@Team7AM) October 20, 2023
