I’ll be honest the X10/Xerixa/Talon core might be my favorite APAC player core of all time
ORG OVERVIEW
-Talon Esports is a Hong Kong based esport org that was founded in 2016, founded by Xiao Zhang.
-Talon currently competes in Arena of Valor, Dota 2, Rainbow Six, Street Fighting V, Tekken, Valorant, and the PCS with a League of Legends team
-The organization has had brand partnerships with several other organizations, suich as New Wave Esports who gave them a large capital investment in 2019, and KFC who has the naming rights to their Arena of Valor team
-Talon also had a spot in the Overwatch Contenders league starting from 2018, but disbanded their team in September 2022
FILIPINO ROSTER HISTORY
-Talon made their entry into VALORANT by signing a fully Filipino lineup ahead of the second PH challengers split of 2022. The team would be:
-Drei
-gnaru
-markL
-Alex
-UdoTan
-GabbyDiz-However, the team would not make it past the open qualifier for the PH region’s challengers. The roster would not participate in any other tournaments and were dropped in October 2022.
-Talon have instead signed the former X10/Xerxia core, one of the most storied rosters in APAC. What follows is that Roster’s history.
X10/XERXIA ROSTER HISTORY
-X10, a Thai organization, signed a VALORANT team in Late 2020 following the conclusion of First Strike. The team would be:
-foxz
-sScary
-Sushiboys
-Crws
-Pooh1tap-The team would go comfortably qualify for Masters 1 in the 2021 VCT circuit, where Masters was regional at the time.
-They would win SEA Masters with convincing wins over MXL LIGAGAME, KPC, and Team SMG.
-Ahead of Stage 2, Paitphan would join the roster, replacing Pooh1tap
-In stage 2, X10 would dominate their region and play through SEA Challengers Finals to secure a spot at Masters Reykjavik, the first international lan for VALORANT
-There, they would lose their opener to Vikings, send home Crazy Raccoon in the lower bracket, before being sent home themselves by FNATIC. Despite the low placement, it was a promising start for the team
-In stage 3, X10 would qualify for Challengers Playoffs again after fighting through the Thai qualifiers. After drawing all 3 of their games, X10 would not move on to the bracket stage of Challengers Playoffs, and denying their chances of a two time appearance.
-However, X10 would still qualify to Champions off of circuit points, where they would be put in a group with Envy (which would become OpTic), Vivo Keyd, and Acend (the eventual tournament winners)
-After losing 0-2 to Envy and sending home VK, X10 would pull off a massive upset in their rematch against Envy, securing a spot in playoffs. Unfortunately they would get knocked out early by later finalists Gambit.
2022
-When disputes with the team and organization started after players (allegedly) received no cut of the champions skins money, the X10 roster would join Xerxia with the exception of Patiphan, who would switch to Overwatch.
-Crws, sushiboys, sScary and foxz would all join Xerxia and have the roster rounded out by Surf.
-The team would show great resilience throughout all of APAC Stage 1, only losing to Paper Rex and qualifying to Masters 1 as APAC’s second seed.
-They would beat OpTic (previous Envy roster they beat at Champions) in their opening match, but lose to Liquid and OpTic again, ending their Masters 1 run in the group stage
-Regardless, Xerxia would again tear through the Thai challengers and earn a spot at APAC Challengers Playoffs. After being knocked into the lower bracket early by Team Secret, Xerxia would rally a lower bracket run and secure a 2nd place seed at Copenhagen after losing to PRX in the grand finals.
-At Copenhagen they would lose to eventual winners FPX, and Japanese representatives Northeption. Nonetheless, they would qualify for Champions off of circuit points
-At Champions, Xerxia lost to North American representatives XSET in their opener, before being sent home by KRU, ending their Champions run in 13th-16th place.
2023
-sScary pursued an offer with Bleed esports, after being proven as one of the best smokes players in apac (Bleed also isn’t a franchised team!)
-Sushiboys, foxz, and crws would all join Talon Esports after Xerxia did not make franchising. They were reunited with Patiphan who had returned to Valorant, and the roster would rounded out by JitBoyS and garnetS.
-Should no further changes be made, Talon Esports in Sao Paolo will be:
-garnetS
-JitBoyS
-Patiphan
-crws
-foxz
-SushiboysOTHER ORGS
PRX: https://www.vlr.gg/159058/prx-org-overview
DRX: https://www.vlr.gg/159565/drx-org-overview
T1: https://www.vlr.gg/161198/t1-org-overview
GE: https://www.vlr.gg/162487/ge-org-overview
ZETA: https://www.vlr.gg/163978/zeta-org-overview
GENG: https://www.vlr.gg/164559/geng-org-overview
RRQ: https://www.vlr.gg/164721/rrq-org-overview/#8
All Other Orgs: https://www.vlr.gg/157308/franchised-orgs-megathread
My twitter: twitter.com/RyanG2B
The remaining orgs are Team Secret and Detonation
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