Australian VERTEX team player Liam "malta" Schembri announced his retirement from professional Counter-Strike at the age of 27.

Over his seven-year career, the legend of the local scene attended numerous major events, including three majors: IEM Katowice Major 2019 and StarLadder Berlin Major 2019 with Grayhound and PGL Major Stockholm 2021 with Renegades. Each time, the Australians' journey ended in the Challengers stage.

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Malta's greatest achievement at other tournaments was winning the WESG 2017 Asia Pacific Finals. At the tournament in Zhaozhou, his ORDER team won $40,000 and a slot at the World Electronic Sports Games 2017, where they finished 9th-12th out of 27 participants.

Liam's last tournament was the Intel Extreme Masters Sydney 2023. VERTEX took the last spot, but as malta himself pointed out, he was happy to interact with many people at the past IEM weekend.

Header image: ESL Copyright | Viola Schuldner