Braxton "swag" Pierce will play for Cloud9 in the North American closed qualifier for ESL One New York, the organisation has revealed.

The 20-year-old hot-shot will fill in for Timothy "⁠autimatic⁠" Ta, who, according to a Twitter post from Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip, will be "out of town" during the qualifier.

Widely regarded as one of the most talented players in North America, Braxton "⁠swag⁠" Pierce was indefinitely banned by Valve in January of 2015 after being implicated in a betting scandal alongside three of his then iBUYPOWER teammates.

Several tournament organisers decided to uphold Valve's bans, but last month ESL announced that all match-fixing penalties preceding February of 2015 would be lifted, opening the door for the former iBUYPOWER members to compete in its tournaments.

swag to play for Cloud9 in the ESL One NY qualifier

swag, who recently won Fragadelphia 11 with ownage, played for Cloud9 as a stand-in at cs_summit, back in April. He helped the team to finish in fourth place and averaged a 1.17 Rating, the second highest of his squad.

Eight teams will compete in the closed qualifier for ESL One New York, which will take place over the weekend, for the chance to win a spot at the $250,000 event. Seven teams have already been determined by invites, with the last spot being filled by the winner of an open qualifier.

Cloud9 will compete in the ESL One New York qualifier with: