Esport Legends – brax / swag

A single bad decision changed his entire life. After a long penance, he is trying his luck again in VALORANT. This is the story of brax, whom CS:GO fans might know as swag.

Braxton “brax” Pierce started his career in the tactical shooter Counter-Strike: Global Offensive like many other VALORANT pro-players. The earliest traces of his path as a professional player can be found in the CS:S team Flaming Rainbows.

Back then he was 15 years old and went by the name of swag. At that time he played together with one of today’s’ most famous players in North America: Jordan “n0thing Gilbert. In 2012 his team was then taken on by the organization TEAM4NOT.

After the switch to Team Dynamic his roster starter competing in CS:GO. After a few decent showings at the ESEA Global Finals 2012 bigger orgs started noticing swag and n0thing.

The start of something big

After a short stay at Quantic Gaming, they signed at the bigger esports org Complexity Gaming. Part of the new team were Spencer “Hiko” Martin, Sean “seang@res” Gares, and Kory “SEMPHIS” Friesen.

The team was one of the best Northern American teams around at the time and even made it to the semifinals of DreamHack Winter 2013, which was the first major tournament in CS:GO. There they lost to Swedish powerhouse Fnatic.

Thanks to that success, they could participate in EMS One Katowice 2014, where they managed to qualify for playoffs again. There, they could not quite match up to the Ninjas in Pyjamas’ legendary lineup but still delivered an impressive match. At that point, Pierce was a promising talent being only 18 years old.

The steep fall

Because of the international success swag could join the best North American team in early 2014: iBUYPOWER. Playing for the red chimera he and his teammates Keven “AZK” Larivière, Tyler “Skadoodle” Latham, Sam “DaZeD” Marine, and Joshua “steel” Nissan managed to score multiple North American titles.

Even though they could not quite make any finals internationally, the team received a lot of praise. Part of the reason was swag showing off his incredible aim on several occasions.

At the end of 2014, it seemed like swag would be CS:GO’s next rising star, he just needed to find the right team. But he and his iBUYPOWER squad were doomed to be remembered for something different than their incredible skill.

In 2015 esports journalist Richard Lewis shone a light on their recent past.

In a match against team NetcodeGuides.com in CEVO-League Season 5 they were the easy favorites but still lost with a dreadful 16-4 scoreline. Even back then the casters did not know what to say about the odd plays made by swag and his buddies.

As was later revealed, they lost the game deliberately. The players and some of their associates bet against themselves to make a huge profit afterward because of the incredible odds. The only exception was Skadoodle.

The fraud was revealed by Lewis a few months later, which resulted in lifelong bans by Valve. To this day, they are not allowed to participate in Majors. Other organizers like ESL and ESEA also banned them for several years, which basically torpedoed their careers.

The long way of repentance and a new beginning

Due to the bans, it was impossible for swag, who in the meantime renamed to brax, to be a part of the tier 1 scene. Up until the start of 2020 he was involved in small orgless teams and streamed for Cloud9.

At that time he played for GX, Torqued, Swole Patrol, and Lazarus Esports. None of the teams achieved any international success. Many fans felt like one of the game’s biggest prodigies was biding his time with his hands tied up.

In early 2020 Riot Games then announced their new shooter VALORANT. The game offered gameplay similar to Counter-Strike but implemented a lot of other ideas into the formula.

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The enormous hype surrounding the game caused brax to be the first player to be officially signed to play VALORANT. T1, one of League of Legends’ most successful teams wanted to get a roster for the new game.

Part of the team is iBUYPOWER teammates AZK, DaZeD, and Skadoodle. The team has competed in each of the biggest tournaments so far. With the addition of Ha “Spyder” Jung-Woo they might have a chance at winning First Strike, VALORANT’s first major tournament series.

With his talent, brax might develop to be one of the best players in VALORANT. He does need the right environment for that to happen, though. We hope, the 24-year old will have the chance to redeem himself and choose a new path for his career.

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Image Credit: T1
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