BIG release XANTARES as a free agent

BIG announced on their official website that they have released Ismailcan "XANTARES" Durtkardes. The club terminated the contract with the eSports athlete to give him the opportunity to join the unnamed Turkish squad as a free agent.

Statement Daniel Finkler, BIG CEO

Today we are saying thank you and goodbye to XANTARES. We made the decision to fulfil XANTARES’ wish and to prematurely dissolve his still-active player contract. Thereby, we would like to contribute to helping XANTARES continue his playing career with a Turkish team. From the bottom of our hearts, we wish him all the best and much success with his new team and would like to thank him on behalf of everyone for his achievements and successes with BIG. The same goes for our outstanding Turkish community. Thank you for your fantastic support throughout the years. 

Reports have it that XANTARES assembled a new Turkish lineup that will also include Ozgur "woxic" Eker, Omer "imoRR" Karataş, Bugra "Calyx" Arkın and Yasin "xfl0ud" Koç. The rumored roster formed attracted the attention of FC Galatasaray, which has already made an offer to the players.

It is worth noting that all possible members of the Turkish superstar lineup are currently free agents. Earlier this year woxic and Calyx left Cloud9 and Envy respectively, xfl0ud recently parted ways with GORILLAZ, and today, August 13, Sangal announced the end of cooperation with imoRR.

XANTARES has represented BIG since late 2018. The team's best achievements during that time were wins at DreamHack Open Leipzig 2020, DreamHack Masters Spring 2020, DreamHack Open Summer 2020, and cs_summit 6. The German organization replaced the Turk with Niklas "gade" Gade.