The departure of Josh "Dominator" Sievers from EF Gaming to Jax Money Crew earlier this month opened up a vacancy in the roster, and on Sunday, EFG announced the return of a familiar face in Laurent "Warmach1ne" Keoula.

In March, Keoula parted with EFG to join the Hyper crew who had just welcome Jacob "NightFall" Stanton as its new leader. Keoula cited "too much negativity, and fights" as his reason for leaving EFG. The new Hyper team continued on to dominate in CEVO and land the second seed in the playoffs.

Going into the Buy CGS qualifier, Hyper was favored to win by many, but the results turned out to be very disappointing for the team. Immediately following Hyper's inability to place in the top three, rumors began circulating concerning NightFall's status with the team. When team Heroic was announced (with NightFall at the helm), the state of Hyper became shaky.

Further rumors put Keoula possibly joining Stanton in Heroic, but Keoula dismissed those talks by telling GotFrag, "That [joining Heroic] was completely made up." Regarding his commitment to Hyper, Keoula stated, "I haven't considered myself part of Hyper since Buy.com. I just stuck around to play in the playoffs." He further added, "It was after playing Buy.com that I knew it was a sinking ship."

With a spot open in the roster, EFG approached Keoula to rejoin the team he had helped build up to once be the top team in North America, to which he agreed. Keoula reunites with three of his teammates p0s, mOE, and r0ckst4r with whom he won the CGI 2007 title.

Trevor "p0s" Randolph commented on having his old teammate back with, "After having added Pham and Dominator it just didn't seem the same as previous teams. Communication was poor so we felt going back to our roots of returning a member from the past would benefit us greatly."

Keoula has high hopes for the future as EFG works towards a coveted spot in CGS this summer. "I hope the rest of EFG can find the motivation to start playing a lot again," Keoula said. Concerning the issues EFG had in the past, Keoula has a positive outlook. When asked if he feels that EFG will be different, Keoula replied, "Yea, I mean CGS is right around the corner. People are going to shape up."

EFG fell to the eight spot in the recent North American rankings update. The team will be looking to pick things up from their fifth place finish in the CEVO playoffs with Keoula back on the team.