Founded 2015 Manager Jonas Jerebko | Location Detroit, Michigan Website www.renegadespro.com | |
Divisions Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Overwatch
Call of Duty
Super Smash Bros. Partners 5-hour Energy
HyperX
Twitch.tv
DXRacer
Meta Threads | ||
The Renegades, also known as the Detroit Renegades and previously LA Renegades, is a professional eSports organization that fields teams in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Overwatch, Call of Duty and Super Smash Bros. It previously had a League of Legends team that qualified for the 2016 North American League of Legends Championship Series (LCS), but it was sold to Team EnVyUs after the owners were banned from NA LCS ownership.
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In September 2016, Boston Celtics forward Jonas Jerebko purchased the rights to the Renegades franchise.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Renegades acquired the Australian CS:GO team Vox Eminor on June 19, 2015. The Renegades were the first team announced to be participating in the ELeague. After placing second at IEM Taipei 2016, Renegades announced that Karlo "USTILO" Pivac would be replacing Luke "Havoc" Paton in their starting roster. On June 17, 2016 Chad "SPUNJ" Burchill announced his retirement from competitive Counter-Strike. Ricky "Rickeh" Mulholland was announced as SPUNJ's replacement on July 12, 2016.
Halo
Renegades acquired the team "Leftovers" on January 18th, 2016. Following the Halo World Championship, Spartan and StelluR left Renegades for Team Liquid.
2015
Renegades was initially announced as an unnamed Challenger team in early March 2015 by Chris Badawi. The team's first roster included mid laner Alex Ich and jungler Crumbzz, along with solo queue star support Remilia. After tryouts for the remaining two positions, top laner RF Legendary and AD carry Intense joined the team, and they named themselves Misfits. In April, Misfits participated in the AlphaDraft Challenger League (ADCL) and dropped only a single game during the regular season round robin, finishing 11-1 in first place. After the ADCL regular season ended, Intense left the team. Stixxay joined as a substitute AD carry and played with the team for the bracket stage of the ADCL, and they won the tournament, beating Frank Fang Gaming in the finals.
Misfits played under the name The Expendables6 on the Challenger Ladder and were in third place at the cut-off date for NA Challenger Series (NACS) Summer Qualifier participation. Danish AD Carry Jebus joined as the team's final permanent member, replacing Stixxay, but his first appearance was delayed due to visa issues. In the NACS Qualifier, Misfits played against Also Known As, Team Liquid Academy, and Magnetic, using two different substitute AD carries — Maplestreet against Also Known As and Magnetic, and Nien against Team Liquid Academy. Misfits swept their competition with three consecutive 2-0 victories and qualified for the Summer Season. The team shortly thereafter renamed to Renegades, with caster and former coach Chris "MonteCristo" Mykles joining as the team's co-owner.
Prior to the start of the Challenger Series, Riot Games published a competitive ruling regarding team owner Chris Badawi claiming that he had inappropriately attempted to persuade otherwise contracted players to join the team (then Misfits), including Team Liquid's Quas and Keith. The ruling stated that if Renegades were to qualify for the LCS, Badawi would have to drop his ownership stake in the team. Multiple parties reacted to the ruling, including MonteCristo and Badawi himself, who both protested the fairness of the ruling; and team owners and managers Steve "LiQuiD112" Arhancet of Team Liquid, Reginald of Team SoloMid, and Jack Etienne of Cloud9, who spoke out in support of it. Ultimately Badawi was banned from participating with the team in an official capacity and was forced to divulge his ownership stake in the team if they qualified for the LCS.
Renegades finished the Challenger Series regular season with an 8-2 record and in second place, after losing a tiebreaker to Team Coast. However, in the playoffs, they defeated Imagine 2-1 and then Coast 3-2, earning a berth in the 2016 NA LCS Spring Season. Remilia became the first woman to qualify for the LCS in the league's history.
In October 2015, Maplestreet stepped down from the starting roster. The organization announced open tryouts for his replacement.
2016
In January Renegades picked up a team in the European Challenger Series, dubbed Renegades Banditos. The team consisted of Erik "Tabzz" van Helvert, Matthew "Impaler" Taylor, Marc "Caedrel" Lamont, Barney "Alphari" Morris, and Aleksi "Hiiva" Kaikkonen, with subs Marcin "Xaxus" Maczka and Divit "DxAlchemist" Bui.
In April 2016, the team was at the center of an ownership and management controversy, which resulted in the team being banned from the NA LCS and owners Chris Badawi and Christopher "MonteCristo" Mykles selling the team to NBA player Jonas Jerebko. Following the transfer, the team was rebranded as Detroit Renegades.
Renegades' League of Legends roster was disbanded on 8 May 2016, after they allegedly "violated the competitive ban against Chris Badawi, misrepresented their relationship with TDK, and compromised player welfare and safety". The roster was sold eventually to Team EnVyUs on 18 May 2016.
Gigantic
Renegades acquired the Gigantic roster known as Team ApeX on November 9, 2015.
Super Smash Bros.
Renegades expanded into the Super Smash Bros. series on October 6th 2016.