On September 2nd of 2016, fans of the SPL (Smite Pro League) found that two prominent European teams were missing from the roster. The missing teams were Leftovers and previous world champion Panthera.

What was later circulated (and confirmed by the team rosters and websites) was that both teams had rebranded, becoming the Smite division of other prominent teams in the e-sports scene (Leftovers became Sanguine e-sports and Panthera became NRG (pronounced like energy).

This sort of thing is fairly commonplace in e-sports especially outside of the largest sports such as League of Legends, DOTA 2 and CS: GO (where teams and organizations are well established). In fact, Panthera was previously known as Epsilon e-sports when they beat Enemy in the grand finals.

The team that was previously known as Panthera seems fairly happy with the transition as well. iRaffer (Panthera’s starting support player) even told ESPN, “We’ve been approached by a number of organizations, but nothing could beat the passion and support that NRG displayed. We’re hyped to be playing under their wing this split and will be aiming to retain our World’s crown.”

And it’s not just the team that’s excited.  AHS student and Smite fan Ben Fraser says, “That’s pretty neat.”  

NRG is currently placed third in the smite fall split. However with Leftover’s rebranding to Sanguine, changes other than sponsorship have occurred. For instance, Bo “Badgah” Katzenmaier, the original creator, support and captain of Leftovers, departed and was replaced by Kenny “Arkkyl” Kuska (the team’s original ADC, or attack damage carry), and prominent player Murrdurr replaced Badgah as support. Right now Sanguine is placed seventh in the fall split.

The same day that the teams’ rebranding went into effect, the two teams had a match against each other. The match ended with NRG going 2-0 (they won both games against Sanguine) with a dominating performance in both games.