shox: One of CS:GO’s greatest all-rounders
Everything about Richard “shox” Papillon’s Counter-Strike career so far and some old school plays from the French legend.
From CSS to CS:GO, Richard “shox” Papillon has always been one of the most decorated French Counter-Strike players of all time and incredibly, 14 years since he started playing CS, the Frenchman is still up there competing alongside the best of the best.
Early days
The Frenchman started playing Counter-Strike back in the days of 1.2, having first discovered the game in 2001 at just nine years of age. shox then slowly started to move on to each next version of the game, ending up in Counter-Strike: Source, before the release of CS:GO.
In 2008, shox started making his breakthrough within the competitive scene with a team called Creativ. Already in March 2009, he then joined VeryGames for the first time and was an established top player, maybe one of the best in the world, but the team itself ran into problems and released its players from the organization near the end of the year. However, shox continued on to represent Team ROCCAT, Team LDLC, and later 3DMAX together with Adil “ScreaM” Benrlitom.
After only a few months of representing the 3DMAX organization, shox left to join VeryGames once again where he would sit on top of the world rankings for about six months with his team. And then, despite being one of the best performing players in the world and winning ESWC with his team, shox was removed due to internal problems at the end of 2011.
shox would then go back to team up with the Belgian aim god at Tt Dragons at the beginning of 2012, and together they switched to CS:GO when the game was released.
shox in CS:GO
The Frenchman’s career in CS:GO didn’t really pick up until he joined VeryGames for the third time. In the matter of weeks, shox and company became international competitors aiming for the top. EMS One: Summer 2013 was their first big tournament victory and towards the end of the year, VeryGames started sweeping tournaments like the StarLadder StarSeries Season 7, EMS Fall, and MSI Beat IT. But when the time came for the first CS:GO Major, they failed. After losing to Ninjas in Pyjamas in the semi-finals of the event, shox and his team had to watch as fnatic grabbed the trophy. Their time just hadn’t come yet, but big things was about to happen.
When shox joined Titan, he found a little success, but after LDLC picked him up, his prospects rose once again. Facing off against NiP for the Major trophy, shox and his team fought bitterly to wrap up the series, but the Ninjas managed to force overtime. In OT, the Swedish squad finally ran out of steam and allowed shox and company to close out the map 19-16. The French legend became a Major winner.
The years to follow
In 2015, things became quiet around shox and Team EnVyUs rose to the top without him, making a Grand Final appearance at ESL One Cologne 2015 and later winning the DreamHack Cluj Napoca Major event. In 2016, as Team EnVyUs declined in form, French CS:GO resurfaced with G2 Esports and shox became a part of the project. He helped the team secure their ECS Season 1 trophy and never let up even though the team went through lots of roster changes. The Frenchman continued to secure tournament victories each year, but in 2019 when G2 underwent a major overhaul, shox was out of the project.
shox in Vitality
There is no shame in saying that shox is not as good as he used to be. However, the French player doesn’t show any signs of stopping and he’s found a comfortable spot on the Vitality roster. Since he joined the organization, the team has picked up a number of tournament victories even throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. Most notably, he helped the team win IEM Beijing and BLAST Premier: Fall 2020, all while remaining a consistent individual and one of the most reliable players in the world. Vitality and shox are undoubtedly the best that French CS:GO has to offer right now.
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