CSGO: Vitality Sign Shox, “Most Expensive” Move In Vitality's History

After weeks of rumors, Vitality finally added the French IGL to their roster.

Team Vitality has officially announced the addition of Richard “shox” Papillon to their Counter-Strike roster. The veteran rifler transfers to Vitality after two years with the other well-known French roster, G2. The transfer has been described as “the most expensive” in the Vitality organization’s history.

Please give a very warm welcome to @ShoxCSGO in our CSGO team #VforVictory

Our ambition remains the same, we're here to be the best team in the World 🔥 pic.twitter.com/LvFQbXMfQJ

— Team Vitality 🐝 (@TeamVitality) September 28, 2019

Shox's Wild and Crazy Ride

Richard “shox” Papillon first made a name for himself in Counter-Strike: Source before finally starting his Global Offensive career in 2012. Papillon was a member of several top-tier French lineups, including VeryGames, Titan, Envy, and the LDLC roster that won the DreamHack Winter Major in 2014. In fact, many analysts consider Papillon one of the best Counter-Strike talents to ever come out of France. He has maintained a spot in the HLTV.org Top 20 for the past four years.

The famous French IGL first joined G2 in February of 2016, and led them to victories at the ECS Season 1 Finals, DreamHack Open Tours 2017, ESL Pro League Season 5 Finals, and DreamHack Masters Malmö 2017. Interestingly, G2’s most recent roster had found moderate success, reaching the Grand Final of ESL Pro League Season 9 Finals in June. The team took an early exit from the StarLadder Berlin Major, prompting Papillon into the transfer to Team Vitality. Two days ago, G2 officially parted ways with Papillon a few days ago as rumors rose of the organization’s interest in CR4ZY members Nemanja “nexa” Isaković and Nemanja “huNter–” Kovač.

Vitality Make A Final Push

Vitality first formed in October of last year and steadily climbed up the CS:GO rankings throughout 2019. They won both cs_summit 4 and the ECS Season 7 Finals and made a Grand Final appearance at ESL One Cologne 2019. They were heavily favored to make a deep run in the StarLadder Berlin Major, though were upset in the quarter-final by eventual finalists Avangar. Because of this, the French squad made immediate changes, benching Nathan “NBK-” Schmitt from the active roster. Due to this, Papillon will take Schmitt's spot on the Vitality roster.

Vitality’s first showing with their new roster will come at DreamHack Masters Malmö in early October.

With the addition of Papillion, Vitality's roster is as follows: