ALASKA bolster their ranks with previous UKIC MVP

ALASKA (ex-Verdant) has finalised its roster for the 2025 season with the addition of star rifler Jamie “Tree60” Callan.

The kings of UK CS had their holiday celebrations’ cut short as on the 28th of December Verdant announced the dropping of their roster. Even with a victory in both the UKIC League Winter 2024 Finals and the European Pro League 2nd Division Season 18 it was not enough.

Alongside losing their organisation they also struggled to figure out what direction they wanted to take with their lineup. During 2024 Verdant saw large success changing AWPer from Tom “arTisT” Clarke to international import Remi “Diviiii” Alexandre. This allowed arTisT to focus on IGLing and alongside the French AWPer they dominated regionally winning EPIC.LAN 43 & 42 plus the UKIC League Fall 2024 Finals.

Unfortunately, even though Diviiii might have been putting up good numbers with his flashy playstyle, Verdant’s performance internationally was plateauing. Therefore, within the final days under Verdant, the roster decided to part ways with Diviiii, move arTisT back to AWP and trial ex-GamerLegion Academy IGL and UK CS advisory Oliver “leaf” Jackson. As previously mentioned this saw massive success ironically achieving their best European result under Verdant while maintaining their UK CS crown.

Even though leaf was finding success in Counter-Strike he decided to keep focus on his studies for his final academic year of university. Similar to Matas “Extinct” Strumila last year.

With every team fighting tooth and nail for any VRS points they can get, ALASKA needed to find a replacement fast for 2025 and their upcoming officials. Luckily, they did not have to look far.

Tree60 took the UK CS scene by storm while playing under K10. Playing in both iterations of the roster the young rifler left his mark after making five grand finals in a row across EPIC.LAN and UKIC (four of which were on LAN). Unfortunately, he only struck gold once. This was with K10 in the UKIC League Fall 2023 Finals against Verdant, which also saw him claim the UKCSGO MVP after his impressive 1.18 HLTV rating.

After K10 folded and the roster parted ways, Tree60 linked up with British IGL leaf and coach Oscar “LVN” Levin on GamerLegion Academy. This on the face of it looks fantastic. But in actuality, the only action we saw from Tree60 in five months on HLTV was two games in both ESEA Advanced Season 50 playoffs and CCT Season 2 Europe Series 7 Closed Qualifier.

But now with GamerLegion Academy closing its doors, Tree60 will make a return back to UK CS as he links up with ex-rivals ALASKA.

UKCSGO spoke to ALASKA’s coach Ciaran “biscu” King about why they picked up Tree60 and why they didn’t continue with leaf.

We’ve held interest in Jamie [Tree60] for a long time since before he joined GL academy, we’re glad to have ended the pursuit now with him joining us. We believe he can help us push our VRS rank higher right now but we’re confident he can continue to grow and improve in our roster as we improve our standing in the rankings.

Regarding the departure of Oliver [leaf], he made it clear to us he wanted to keep a keen focus on his studies for his final academic year of university and he was eager for us to replace him in order for the team to play as much as possible in 2025, the team has nothing but love and admiration for Oliver especially for his impact and help during our EPL divison 2 winning run in December, we’re sad to have lost him but we all wish him well in his final year and look forward to his return to competition.

Tree60 has already made his debut with ALASKA in VRS Ranked event CCT Season 2 Europe Series 17 Closed Qualifier. He immediately showed why he was picked up after beating Chimera 2-0 in their opening Group B game boasting a 1.12 HLTV rating. Unfortunately, this is where it started to go downhill.

ALASKA’s next game against Fire Flux was forfeited due to technical difficulties, and this was then followed by Apogee eliminating them in a swift 2-0 as Tree60 posts a measly 0.55 HLTV rating.

Luckily enough, ALASKA are back very soon as they have been invited to another VRS Ranked tournament, CCT Season 2 Europe Series 18 Closed Qualifier. They will compete in group D against Apogee, Copenhagen Wolves and Favbet, the latter being their first opponent.

We won our opening game in @cctour_gg vs #Chimera 2-0.

We lost a but gained a

#ALASKAROARRRRRR

— ALASKA (@ALASKA_CS2) January 24, 2025

ALASKA finalise their roster for 2025 as such:

Tom “arTisT” Clarke
Callum “Girafffe” Jones
Mason “Vacancy” Haines
Matas “Extinct” Strumila
Jamie “Tree60” Callan

Ciaran “Biscu” King (coach)

The post ALASKA bolster their ranks with previous UKIC MVP appeared first on UKCSGO.