NRG having a VALORANT team???
Only one player from the 2022 VALORANT Champions Tour has been carried over to the 2023 season by the North American squad NRG. Most importantly, NRG is beginning from scratch together with a new head coach and a well-known international player from Europe. They have recruited some of the best players from prior squads like OpTic Gaming and FunPlus Phoenix to compete in the Americas division. Duelist Sam “s0m” Oh is the only NRG player from their 2022 season who is returning.
NRG announced one player from their starting five every day for a week. Chet “Chet” Singh, the former head coach of OpTic Gaming, was announced as the new coach for NRG in 2023 by the squad on Monday.
Following that, it was confirmed that the primary members of OpTic Gaming will also be joining, beginning with Pujan “FNS” Mehta, followed by Austin “crashies” Roberts and Victor “Victor” Wong. The fifth announcement ended up being the most unexpected of all the others. Ardis “ardiis” Svarenieks, a popular Latvian/British player who was successful on the FunPlus Phoenix roster in 2022, flew to North America to join NRG.
All of the players for OpTic Gaming and FunPlus Phoenix became free agents because neither company was successful in becoming a franchise. Both teams’ players became in-demand commodities as a result of their teams’ success both nationally and internationally. Star duelist Jaccob “yay” Whiteaker, who joined Cloud9, was one of the first to depart. OpTic Gaming’s core group, though, preferred to remain in North America. Three of the four OpTic players who were still playing joined NRG as a result, leaving Jimmy “Marved” Nguyen as the lone former OpTic player who has yet to formally sign with a VCT team for 2023.
The starting five for NRG are now these five players who have been revealed. As required by league rules, the team will need to sign a sixth player as a backup. But we’ll have to wait till the full NRG 2023 roster is ready since the s0m reveal ended NRG’s reveal week.