The tier 1 competition is at a standstill, but we are already seeing some movement. The team that competed under the Mirage tag in the last stage of the North American League separated from the organization and added something new.
It was through a tweet on X from one of the team members, Nathanial “Rampy” Duvall, that the roster was announced’ with well-known names from the scene.
The team consists of:
- Evan ‘Kanzen’ Bushore
- Nathanial ‘Rampy’ Duvall
- Franklyn ‘VertcL’ Cordero
- Brady ‘Spiker’ Lukens
- Dylan ‘Bosco’ Bosco
- Matthew ‘meepeY’ Sharples (coach)
BLIX spoke with the project’s British coach, meepeY, about the team, Bosco’s addition to the squad and their expectations.
An almost happy ending
Despite 7th place in the NAL regular phase, Mirage, still with Zac “slothi” Siple on the team in place of Bosco, almost managed to qualify for the Atlanta Major. In the Last Chance Qualifier, the team narrowly missed beating Spacestation in the final.
meepeY summarized this latest Mirage stage:
‘I think with the ex-Mirage roster, we had a really good run in the last stage, we finished technically fifth in North America, losing out to SSG in the finals of LCQ. It was really, really close. It’s a shame we couldn’t actually make it to the Major, but still, I think next time we will.’
Bosco joining
‘We did have a roster change, we picked Bosco, former World Champion. The team is really good for the upcoming stage,’ comments meepeY.
The decision was made to bring former world champion Bosco to the team, removing slothi from the team, meepeY explained the thought process behind the switch.
Bosco joins the team, adding even more experience (Image Credits: SteelSeries)Bosco arrives to resolve a role conflict in the team, according to meepeY.
‘What we basically did was that he had a little shuffle with the roles and trying to put people on things they were more comfortable with, and that seemed give us a bigger boost coming to the Last Chance Qualifier, and that allowed us to essentially make it to grand finals of LCQ.’ said meepeY. ‘We decided to bring Bosco onto the roster because of his pedigree and experience. Having a guy like him in the team is absolutely massive; he brings a large amount of vocal force to the team as well as firepower and support power. He essentially allows players in the team to play exactly the roles that they want. With Bosco being with us now, everyone is exactly where they want to be, everyone is playing in the role they want to be.’ He explained.
High expectations
The atmosphere right now is one of great trust in the team, as meepeY showed in the interview, also telling us “So far, the practices have been going fantastic.” He went on to say the team has ‘…been performing exceptionally well in scrims. I just hope when it comes down to next stage, we keep this performance going.’
Still, meepeY did not fail to appeal to organizations to contract the project, clarifying that all members are all free on the market.
‘On paper, this team is absolutely stacked, if you’re an organization, we kind of have a really good pickup here.’ He said
‘As of right now, we are ex-Mirage; [the] temporary name for the team is Delusion. I think if you’re an organization trying to make the way into Siege or to North America, we are a completely free roster, we have no buyouts, no clauses, nothing. Pick us up, slap us into the next stage, and I guarantee we’ll perform unproduced results.’
