Serral leaves ENCE and joins Basilisk

After more than six years of representing ENCE, Joona “Serral” Sotala decided to move to Basilisk, a newly formed company from the United States.

Little is known about this company and it’s a bit surprising that ENCE left the best esports organization in Finland to play for it. But he was likely offered a very good contract, which for a 24-year-old is quite appealing.

Serral’s amazing career

Serral is one of the best StarCraft 2 players in the world. Just a few years after the South Korean scene was torn apart by the match-fixing scandals that involved a world champion (Lee “Life” Seung-hyun), Serral’s star started to rise.

In 2017, he got his first important result, at WCS Jonkoping, where he finished second and was awarded $10.000. In 2018, his results improved considerably and by the end of it, he was the best StarCraft 2 player in the world. For Serral, the most important match of that season was the Grand Final he played against Kim “Stats” Dae-yeob.

Serral won that match with a score of 4-2 and earned $280.000 for his epic achievement.

Serral’s ENCE years were full of success. In Europe, the player dominated in many of the tournaments and had very little competition for the first few years. More recently, Riccardo “Reynor” Romiti started to seriously challenge and even defeat him in ZvZ matchups.

But even without being the best player in the world, Serral was still a top four competitor at most of the tournaments he was a part of. And this lasted for six years.

Serral’s most recent grand success was the trophy he won at IEM Katowice 2022. In that tournament, he encountered Reynor, once again, in the Grand Final. The score went from 0-2 in favor of Serral to 3-2 in favor of Reynor.

But then, when few people would have expected, Serral won two consecutive games and emerged victorious. He received more than $170.000 for this win.

Nobody knows what the future holds for Serral, but he will likely remain one of the best SC2 players for many years to come. The bigger question that we should ask is this: what’s the deal with Basilisk and why did he join this company?

About Basilisk

Basilisk didn’t just sign ENCE for its project. Prominent commentators like Kevin “RotterdaM” van der Kooi were signed as well. At this point, the active players are him and Yoon “trigger” Hong. It remains to be seen what the goal of this company is.

Header: Blizzard Entertainment