Rickeh Leaves ORDER

Ricardo “Rickeh” Mulholland has officially left Australian Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team ORDER on Friday, January 28. After two years, the 30-year-old veteran leaves the team as he looks to open a new chapter of his esports career.

The Australian CS:GO esports team, ORDER, announced the departure of its long-standing member Rickeh. The 30-year-old veteran leaves the team after a two-year tenure, which began in February 2020.

Although ORDER struggled to achieve much in their region over the last two years, primarily due to the Renegades’ dominance, the Australian squad have secured a couple of trophies. Still, most of their tournament placements ended in runner-up, behind Renegades.

ORDER kicked off the 2021 season with two tournament titles in ESEA Season 36: Premier Division – Australia and the ESL ANZ Champs Season 12 at the start of the year. They have since attended eight events but failed to win a single one.

However, ORDER have done well enough to be recognized as the second-best team in their region. Across all the tournaments ORDER attended in 2021, the team has placed worst than top-four only at the ESL Pro League Conference Season 15 (ninth-12th).

At 30 years of age, Rickeh was by far the most experienced player on ORDER, having also competed at the highest level of CS:GO ecosystem earlier in his career.

Rickeh started his CS:GO esports career in 2015 with Team Immunity and teamed up with Renegades in July 2016. However, due to the team’s lack of success, Rickeh left Renegades to join Counter Logic Gaming at the start of 2017.

Unfortunately, success was again hard to come by for the Australian CS pro. But while the team did not achieve much, Rickeh has proven himself as a promising talent, which earned him a contract with Rogue in May 2018.

With Rogue, Rickeh made his first CS:GO Major appearance at FACEIT Major: London 2018. Playing in a roster that featured Daniel “vice” Kim, Spencer “Hiko” Martin, Casper “cadiaN” Møller, and Hunter “SicK” Mims, Rickeh finished the London Major in 20th-22nd place.

Shortly after, Rickeh left for Complexity Gaming, which acquired him on December 29 as a part of its 2019 roster. Now playing in the European region for the first time in his career, Rickeh had a chance to prove he could compete with the best teams in the world, but he was again met with disappointment.

Complexity could not win a single tournament throughout the entire year. Most notably, the team crashed out of StarLadder Berlin Major 2019 in 20th-22nd place, which ushered in roster changes and the departure of Rickeh.

Rickeh spent the next three months without a team before getting picked up by ORDER and returning to his home region. Although the Australian CS:GO pro was again unable to win a single noteworthy tournament, he has helped ORDER establish itself as one of the region’s top teams.

As Rickeh’s replacement, ORDER decided to add Luke “ekul” Blakey. The 26-year-old was last part of Paradox but left the team in September 2021, when the organization replaced its entire roster.

By signing for ORDER, ekul will reunite with his former Paradox coach Kobi “xertz” Wallis, who he played under in 2021, before xertz left Paradox once the organization decided to field a new roster.

The 26-year-old AWPer joins ORDER only on trial, one week ahead of ESL Challenger #48. The international CS:GO esports tournament will run on February 11-13 and feature eight teams, a $100,000 prize pool, and one ticket for the EPL Conference Season 16.