After being a stand-in for the squad, entry fragger Daniel "roca" Gustaferri is set to officially join Echo Fox's Counter-Strike: Global Offensive squad after being bought out from his contract with compLexity Gaming, sources close to the player and organizations told ESPN.
For the last few weeks, roca has played with the squad in FACEIT and Twitch's Esports Championship Series in place of former Echo Fox member Trey "tck" Martin, who was removed shortly after the team qualified for that league. Now, roca will become an official member of the team, replacing tck permanently.
Roca is one of two players that Echo Fox has been negotiating with over the past few weeks. The other is former Cloud9 entry fragger Ryan "fREAKAZOiD" Abadir. He began discussing the possibility of joining the team with captain Mohamad "m0E" Assad, shortly after being notified of his imminent removal from Cloud9. That potential deal is still up in the air, according to sources, and could either go or fall through in the coming weeks.
But for now, roca will join the four other members of the Echo Fox squad: AWPer m0E, in-game leader Sean "sgares" Gares, Armeen "a2z" Toussi and Ronnie "ryx" Bylicki. The squad that qualified is participating in the ECS, but recently forfeited its bracket matches in the ESEA Premier league because of roster uncertainty.
The main event that Echo Fox is participating in, however, is Turner Broadcasting System and WME|IMG's ELeague, which begins May 24. That league is the first televised Counter-Strike: Global Offensive league and will have a $1.2 million prize pool each season. Other teams confirmed to attend include Cloud9, Renegades, Counter Logic Gaming, Astralis, Ninjas in Pyjamas, and mousesports.
Over the past four months, Echo Fox has made headlines primarily because of its owner, Rick Fox, a former professional basketball player who played for the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics.
Fox first bought into the esports industry by acquiring League of Legends team Gravity's League Championship Series spot for $1 million, as reported by the Daily Dot. Fox and his organization have expanded into Counter-Strike and intend to expand into Heroes of the Storm, Fox told the Daily Dot's Saira Mueller in an interview.
Echo Fox and compLexity declined to comment.
Update 4/20 5pm ET: Echo Fox has released a press release confirming that roca has permanently joined the team.