Renegades’ fan favourite Ollie “DickStacy” Tierney has been removed from the lineup after a 25 month tenure. The man who looks to be filling his shoes, thanks to the team's ESEA roster page, is the former ORDER player Jordan “Hatz” Bajic, a name not too familiar to the international Counter-Strike scene outside of group stage exits at a few big events. Hatz, however, appears to be the perfect upgrade for Renegades, occupying many of the same roles as DickStacy in his time in previous lineups and possessing a similar selfless mentality.

Source: Dylan Esguerra, ESL Australia

Like DickStacy, Hatz experienced an incredibly quick rise to the top of the scene. While DickStacy was picked up by Dark Sided in March of 2017 thanks to his play in ESEA’s Rank S before joining Grayhound that November, Hatz is a product of the CyberGamer league system. In 2015, CG was the main platform for competitive play and progression in Australia, with ESEA yet to properly establish itself. It was Hatz’ play in CG Amateur - just one tier above the lowest league, Open - which saw him noticed, and eventually picked up, by Trident’s Egor “LONSDALE” Baranov toward the end of 2015. LONSDALE was in the process of rebuilding a roster that had its own meteoric rise earlier that year, thanks in no small part to his methodical, CIS region-inspired calling style. Taken under his wing, Hatz flourished in this new environment of competitive play, well enough to receive the call up from arguably the best team in the country at the time, Legacy, just a few months later in April of 2016. Replacing the legendary Azad “topguN” Orami to play alongside the equally legendary Luke “Havoc” Paton and Mike “ap0c” Aliferis, Hatz was poised to take his game to the next level. Tragically and abruptly, however, Legacy split up completely three days later and Hatz decided to reunite with LONSDALE on Trident.

The core of this roster - Hatz, LONSDALE and Chris “yellow” McGillivray - stuck together for over a year, moving between organisations like Parallax and Avant, and playing with names like Razmik “RaZ” Bastadjan, Simon “Sico” Williams and Travis “wizard” Richardson. The team managed to win a few offline events in its time - namely Season 3 of the ESL AUNZ Championships and Season 8 of the CyberGamer Pro League - but were never able to progress further than being top four in the region. This would change for Hatz, however, when the core of himself, Sico and wizard joined up with Jay “liazz” Tregillgas and Chris “emagine” Rowlands to create the roster of Kings in June 2017. This ‘superteam’ lineup was formed in response to the domestic dominance of Chiefs, who had recently stunned the world with their wins over North and Renegades at IEM Sydney. Kings quickly established themselves as a top four team in the region. Hatz was in this same position on Avant, but, this time, the level of play was much higher thanks to the ‘steel-sharpens-steel’ effect of growing international opportunities and an increase in player salaries from organisations.

For the remainder of 2017 and the first half of 2018, when the Kings lineup was transferred to ORDER, the Australian scene resembled 2015 international CS, where four elite teams stood above the rest and would seemingly take turns beating each other for championships. It’s in this period that Hatz established himself as a no-nonsense, fearless entry player. With the lurking, late-round play of liazz and the more passive, turret-style of AWPing from Sico, it was up to Hatz to become the team’s play maker. His aggressive rifling, working alongside team captain emagine in an entry duo, was the catalyst for a lot of the lineup’s T round victories. However, with the addition of new players over 2018 and 2019, such as Alistair “aliStair” Johnston, Josh “INS” Potter and Karlo “USTILO” Pivac, Hatz was forced to change positions a few times and the resources he commanded would fluctuate depending on the lineup. When aliStair was brought in to replace wizard at the start of 2018, Hatz was given a bit more freedom in attack as a trade fragger while the new man took over the hard entry role. When Sico left the team in September of 2018 and INS came in, aliStair switched to the AWP role and Hatz shifted back to being the first man in. In the ORDER lineup he departs, sporting emagine, aliStair, USTILO and Matthew “Valiance” Hartrick, Hatz was treated as the star rifler of the team and given the most freedom he’s had since his days on Avant to make plays and trades. Hatz remained ORDER’s highest-rated player and most consistent fragger throughout the entirety of 2019, exhibiting a 1.13 LAN rating. The team won two ESL AUNZ Championships and attended for the most recent ESEA Global Challenge, where they lost to INTZ in the group decider match.

Hatz with ORDER at the ESL AUNZ Championships Season 9 Finals (Source: Dylan Esguerra, ESL Australia)

When comparing Hatz’s play on ORDER to DickStacy’s on Renegades, it’s clear that Hatz would be a direct upgrade for the team. DickStacy, especially after the addition of INS, was the hard entry player for the team’s T-side campaigns. When taking a site or map control, Renegades would almost always be led by the duo of DickStacy and Liam “malta” Schembri. DickStacy is the epitome of a team player in these positions, running head-first into engagements to gain information, take control of areas of the map and be traded by teammates. On CT, as is typical for entry fraggers, DickStacy would be seen in many anchor roles, such as ramp on Nuke, ivy on Train, B on Dust II and B on Inferno. Despite his attitude and fearlessness, however, his fragging output left a lot to be desired. With a few exceptions, DickStacy struggled against top 50 ranked opponents on LAN, averaging a 0.93 rating. Joining in his stead, Hatz would be able to occupy a majority of the same roles, maintain that no-nonsense attitude in offense and provide a stronger fragging output. Hatz’ positional history on the T side, moreover, would give the team the ability to shift malta to a first contact position and stack the firepower in their trading and late-round game further.

Renegades is a team with a lot of great qualities. Sico is on the path to becoming a world-class AWPer, INS has taken up the mantle left by the ever-consistent erkaSt, dexter continues to develop his calling while lurking across the map and away from the team, and malta has another selfless, team-oriented mindset that lays the platform for the other three to thrive. What it felt they were lacking, however, was firepower and much of that can be attributed to DickStacy. Hatz’ last three years of play prove that he is the upgrade Renegades need if they are to elevate their game.