Three months after being unbanned from competitive CS:GO, Sam ‘DaZed’ Marine has quit the sport.
Marine is hanging up his keyboard after claiming that he’s lost skill in his two years away from the scene and has a lack of drive to practice and compete. He’ll be leaving Gx, the North American ESEA Premier team that he joined after his ban from ESL and Dreamhack events was lifted. He’ll be replaced by Shawn ‘witmer’ Taylor.
Marine was one of the four iBUYPOWER roster that was banned for matchfixing in 2015.
Gx’s roster contains Braxton ‘swag’ Pierce, Kevin ‘AZK’ Lariviere, Michael ‘dapr’ Gulino and Matt ‘Pollo’ Wilson. Pierce and Lariviere were also part of the unbanned iBP team, with Lariviere quitting his careeer as a professional Overwatch player to join the team with Marine as his in-game leader. There was a lot of excitement around the trio reunited after the lifting of the ban, and it’s been successful, with the team are currently at fifth place in season 26 of the Mountain Dew League, of the 23 teams competing.
Marine will now return to his career on YouTube and Twitch, a role he’d been involved with since he was originally banned.