aurora and 9 Pandas trade r3salt and clax

aurora have announced the addition of Timur "⁠ clax ⁠" Sabirov from 9 Pandas, with Evgeny "⁠ r3salt ⁠" Frolov moving in the other direction. The move ends clax 's 16-month stint with 9 Pandas, whilst r3salt had only been with aurora for four months.

In their announcement on X, aurora suggested they had initiated the move, going on to state they had done so because "it's important that every member of the team is not only an excellent player but also behaves in the most respectful manner toward both the club and their teammates."

The transfer comes as a surprise as r3salt performed well for aurora during his short time with the team, averaging a 1.17 rating and helping the squad win Skyesports Masters 2024, all whilst aurora maintained their place around the top 20 of the world ranking.

By joining 9 Pandas r3salt will reunite with Aleksandr "⁠shalfey⁠" Marenov, with whom he played on FORZE over the course of 2023.

clax averaged a 1.06 rating over the past three months as 9 Pandas' lowest-rated player. The team overall enjoyed modest success in recent months, claiming the CCT Season 2 Europe Series 3 title and qualifying for BetBoom Dacha Belgrade Season 2.

clax was also notably part of the 9 Pandas team that completed an impressive underdog run to qualify for PGL Major Copenhagen earlier this year, taking down the likes of Astralis and GamerLegion in the process. The team were eventually unable to compete at the Major due to visa issues.

This marks the second change in recent months for 9 Pandas, as they recently swapped storied IGL Denis "⁠seized⁠" Kostin out from the starting roster in favour of shalfey and added Artem "⁠Fierce⁠" Ivanov as their coach.

The two squads are now:

aurora :