Lucas ‘Steel’ Lopes joins Team Liquid, will compete at IEM Oakland

Lucas ‘Steel’ Lopes is joining Team Liquid, a surprise move that will see him replace Peter ‘stanislaw’ Jarguz on the roster.

It’s a surprising move that sees Lopes leaving the Immortals roster, which was regarded as the second best team in Brazil until they imploded at Dreamhack Montreal back in September. Lopes was the last member of that roster, and now he’s left Immortals are fielding a whole new team.

The pre-Montreal Immortals squad had Legend status, giving them access to future Major’s without going through qualification, but Major status is attached to the players, and if three players leave the team, the organisation loses their status. After Vito ‘kNg’ Giuseppe, Lucas ‘LUCAS1’ Teles and his twin brother Henrique ‘HEN1’ Teles left the team after allegations the trio spent all night party at Dreamhack Montreal, they took the team’s legend status.

Lopes will be competing with the team at IEM Oakland this weekend, but after he failed to qualify in the open qualifiers for the Boston Major with Immortals, he won’t be able to play for Team Liquid at the event.

The team will field Wilton ‘zews’ Prado, the team’s coach, for the Boston Major. In the announcement, Prado said “Steel is the most professional player I know. His positive attitude and skillset fit our needs perfectly and we are excited with what’s ahead of us.”

It’s not sure how Steel will fit into the team, currently lead by shot-caller Nicholas "nitr0" Cannella. We’ll no doubt see the man in action this weekend and get a better sense for how the team operates. Liquid’s roster now consists of Lopes, Cannella, Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski, Josh “jdm” Marzano, and Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken.