Last NA team, lets get it
ORG OVERVIEW
-NRG was founded by the Co-Owners of the Sacramento Kings in late 2015, and began making esports signings in early 2016
-They started by signing a Rocket League roster that is still considered top 3 in North America. They would also pick up a Smite roster, Smash and DBZ Fighter players, and even an entire CSGO roster that would later be bought out by NRG
-NRG also were one of the founding members of the Overwatch League, entering under the franchise name of the San Francisco Shock, and picking up Luminosity's roster. They would also sign sinatraa, who would go on to be considered the best Overwatch player in the world for a time.
-Lastly, NRG would enter VALORANT in Late 2020, right before the beginning of first strike, bringing in Chet as a coach, and daps as their first player
-NRG are also known for having some very well known investors, including Alex Rodriguez, Shaw, and H3CZ as a co-CEO
ROSTER HISTORY
2020
-NRG played first strike with only 4 signed players, with the fifth changing throughout late 2020. The initial four would be:
-eeiu
-koler
-s0m
-daps-NRG would field xCeed as a fifth through their first run at First Strike, and would exit in the Ro32.
-In their second showing, they would bring in effys on a trial basis, making it into the UMG Closed qualifier. However, they would fall in the decider match to FaZe, ending their first strike run just outside of playoffs
2021
-After first strike, NRG would sign Shanks as a duelist, and then Infinite as a Sentinel, and KOLER leaving less than 2 weeks later. The roster NRG would field for the first 2 VCT open qualifiers would be:
-daps
-s0m
-infinite
-shanks
-eeiu-The team would make a deep run in the first challengers, making the closed qualifier, but faced consecutive 2-0 losses to GenG and XSET, two newer rising rosters. Going into the second qualifier, NRG faced an embarassing 2-0 loss to Andbox, bringing about a roster move.
-Despite Infinite only being signed for a month, NRG opted to poach ANDROID from andbox and add him to the starting lineup, which would force s0m onto smokes with ANDROID playing a duelist role.
-This roster would have much more success, making it all the way into the closed qualifier and taking a match off of 100 Thieves, the previous first strike winners, before suffering losses to FaZe and GenG to knock them out of Challengers, and masters contention.
-During the offseason, Shanks was dropped from NRG for unknown reasons. Some speculate that matchfixing allegations from CSGO were causing players to be dropped from their rosters, although this reasoning was never confirmed. Tex would be brought in as a replacement. Chet would depart the org at the time.
-In the second challengers, NRG would again get knocked out in opens in the Ro16 to XSET. In their second showing, they would tear through the bracket, making it all the way to the upper bracket final, where they would lose to Cloud9 and then Sentinels in the lower final. The high placement had earned NRG a spot in the Challengers Playoffs, where they would compete to represent North America on the international stage
-In Challengers Finals, NRG would win their opener against XSET, but then lose consecutive matches to Cloud9 and V1, giving them an early exit.
-During the offseason, daps would return to CS, and Wedid would be his replacement, picked up from XSET. NRG's Roster for the remainder of the 2021 VCT season would be:
-eeiu
-ANDROID
-tex
-s0m
-wedid-With this roster, NRG would fall to their lowest point on the rankings, losing to Virtuoso in the Ro32 in the first open qualifier, and Resonate, also in the Ro32, in the second open qualifier. Both Virtuoso and Resonate were F/A teams. Due to their poor placement, NRG would not be able to attend LCQ
-The squad would continue playing in other tournaments, such as the NSG summer champions, where they would come in second place to Cloud9. After this tournament, Wedid would be released
-NRG would not play another tournament for nearly 3 months, but would go on to sign Hazed from TSM as an IGL, and would compete in the Valorant Elite Showdown with the new roster, and lose in the semi-finals to eventual winners, KCP.
2022
-Before going into the first VCT open qualifier of 2022, NRG would play the Knights VALORAMPAGE, where they would again place second to Cloud9. The roster had also made some role swaps, with Android playing sentinel/chamber, tex as a flex, hazed as smokes, and s0m back on Jett. NRG's roster going into 2022 would be:
-Hazed
-eeiu
-s0m
-ANDROID
-tex-The roster would make it all the way to the UBQF in the first qualifier before losing to XSET, but would claw through the lower bracket to qualify for groups, beating KCP, Knights, and Rise in the process
-Prior to the start of VCT, NRG would also play the in the NSG winter championship, losing to XSET in the Quarter Finals (man they lost to XSET a lot)
-In VCT groups, NRG would start off 0-3 with losses to Sentinels, OpTic, and V1, effectively eliminating them from playoff contention. They would also lose to Knights, but would pull off a week 5 win against Rise to avoid going 0-5.
-Between splits, NRG would opt to remove ANDROID and bring in Ethan from 100T, and would against swap Ethan onto flex, and tex onto Chamber. They would also a bootcamp for the second split
-In the second split, NRG would tear through Lenny Time, ZMM, Knights, and V1 without dropping a map, earning themselves a spot in groups again
-After a week 1 win against TSM, the squad would lose 3 consecutive matches to XSET, Ghost, and 100T. With a week 5 win against the also 1-3 Guard, NRG would squeak into playoffs.
-Because they were the bottom seed, NRG would start in the lower bracket, They would take down EG and Ghost before losing to Faze.
-Since they placed high enough in playoffs. NRG would be given the chance to attend LCQ. They would lose their opener against 100T, win their next match against EG, before bowing out to C9, ending their VCT season
RUMORED ROSTER MOVES
-NRG have made possibly the most moves this offseason. A report stated they would be signing the OpTic core (FNS, crashies, victor), and their coach Chet
-This massive move seems to have been confirmed by the fact that hazed, ethan, and eeiu have all been moved to inactive, and tex and coach JoshRT have been released
-A report from George Geddes yesterday also reported the ardiis from FPX may be joining the roster
-If all of the rumored reports are true, NRG in 2023 could be:
-crashies
-FNS
-ardiis
-s0m
-victorADDITIONAL THREADS (I hit character limit)
-C9: https://www.vlr.gg/148561/cloud9-org-overview
-100T: https://www.vlr.gg/148653/100t-org-overview
-EG: https://www.vlr.gg/148843/eg-org-overview
-SEN: https://www.vlr.gg/148889/sen-org-overview
-my twitter: https://twitter.com/RyanG2B
With all the North American teams done, I'll be doing Brazil next.
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