Niels-Christian "NaToSaphiX" Sillassen has now officially joined Sprout, completing a month-long trial with the team.

The Danish AWPer started his stint with Sprout in January, after the team returned from a disappointing ELEAGUE Major run. Niels-Christian "⁠NaToSaphiX⁠" Sillassen replaced Jesse "⁠zehN⁠" Linjala in the starting lineup, and also took over the main AWPing role from Kevin "⁠kRYSTAL⁠" Amend, who now focuses on in-game leading.

NaToSaphiX has become a permanent member of Sprout

After playing a plethora of online matches and qualifiers, as well their first LAN together (Play2Live Cryptomasters in Minsk), Sprout have decided to make the addition of NaToSaphiX to the team a permanent one.

NaToSaphiX says that he is happy for the opportunity and excited to be a part of the project:

"It's a great pleasure for me to finally be able to announce that I'm a part of Sprout. I feel really honored to be able to wear Sprout’s colours and to be able to learn from such great and experienced players." "This whole process also serves as a great lesson for me as to why it's important to be friendly to every new person you meet, as this opportunity really only became possible because of my good friend Emir, who got me a practice day with the team." "All-in-all, I am really excited to be a part of this new project and I hope we'll be able to put up some very strong performances soon! Thanks to every single one of the Sprout players, our coach tow b, Emir and the rest of the Sprout management for helping me find my place in the team."

The team's manager, Emir "sngz" Udvincic, said that a full-time AWP player was what they were needing and that NaToSaphiX showed promising results in the trial:

"We needed to change - we needed to redefine ourselves. After the Boston Major, we saw that the team needed a restructuring to function: We were missing an AWP player and came to the decision that a new talent had to fill this role. After considering many options, I contacted NaToSaphiX and he showed promising results. He has great chemistry with our team and a good attitude, I am excited to see NaToSaphiX live up to his potential and take Sprout to another level." "I also want to thank zehN a lot for his time in Sprout, he is definitely a great person and teammate to have."

Sprout, who are currently 30th in our world ranking, now have: