“I need a break even from Malr1ne”, — ATF about the Team Falcons disbandment

Former Team Falcons offlaner Ammar ATF Al-Assaf spoke about the reasons behind the disbandment of the club’s golden roster. He cited spending too long on the same squad as one of the main factors. The esports player shared his thoughts in an interview with Maurice KheZu Gutmann.

First, ATF noted that the team’s incredibly successful debut year actually had a negative impact on the roster’s future. In 2024, the Falcons won six Tier 1 championships, finished in the top 3 at the Riyadh Masters 2024, and took fourth place at The International 2024.

Our first year was so insane, when our second year, it... when I look at it, it looks good. It still looks fine, but our expectations were way too high; we were supposed to win everything.

The Falcons didn’t get off to a strong start in 2025. The team frequently placed in the top six or made it to the finals, but didn’t secure a single victory until August. Ammar considers their second-place finish at the Esports World Cup 2025 to be undeservedly high, since the team wasn’t in top form and got very lucky with their opponents.

I think like these results made us understand that TI is now the only thing that matters, and we need to win TI, or we're going to disband. It's definitely because we've been playing for so long.

After winning The International 2025, the roster members decided to play one more season together. But this time, everyone on the roster understood that, regardless of the results, the team would disband after The International 2026. In 2026, Falcons also frequently placed highly but didn’t win a single title, and at TI15 they finished in 7th–8th place.

Ammar considers the result at The International acceptable for the roster’s final tournament, since they managed to make it to the playoffs and participate in the opening ceremony. The team struggled in their final competitions, partly due to a lack of ideas. According to ATF, the team sometimes simply copied successful drafts.

The former Falcons offlaner said he felt relieved after the disbandment and thinks he won’t be able to play on the same team as his former teammates for at least another six months — not even with Stanislav Malr1ne Potorak, who is a close friend of his.

I mean, to others, I think it was different. They were more sad, I think. But for me, it was more relief because I never really stress or care like I I'll play 10,000 games whoever whatever whenever but this is the first time that I actually don't know why even I got affected by this so like yeah for me it was first time to get relief.

Nobody from us is playing with each other. This is like a full split, like elsewhere for everyone. Yes, it's a full disband. We had some talks that “Oh maybe this will play with this; maybe I'll play with Malr1ne”, but no, man, even you I need 6 months to one year and maybe after we can play with each other. I don't know, just like change push so many, even us two, even though we're so close (with Malr1ne), like "just **** it, dude, just full split".

At the same time, ATF stated that relations between the former Falcons players are even better now than they were while they were on the team.

We never really knew how much we like and love each other until we actually at time it's done. Cuz right now I message and talk to my team. I love my team way more than when I was with them. Way more. And everyone feels the same. It's all it feels so free to even talk cuz you have zero pressure and you have so many great memories. Okay, there's bad memories but who cares? Like you're going to have them. There are no ups without downs.

At this point, it’s unclear where ATF. will continue his career. Rumor has it he might join Team Yandex or Team Liquid. You can check out other possible replacements, as well as official transfers, in our articles.

As CyberScore previously reported, Xtreme Gaming disbanded its roster.