There is such a bizarre fascination within the esports community to find some sort of rookie prodigy that is going to change the landscape of Valorant forever. And some how we can't find that person. And the reason, honestly, is that we are too wrapped up in results to see the forest for the trees.
Every single prodigy in the story of esports has some sort of personal struggle attached to it. Some dark piece of history that we leave in the dark. Faker lived with his grandparents and his father. Doublelift's family was massacred. Rapha's comes from a divorced family situation. And yet we want to ignore these details. We look at only the championships and ignore the horrific conditions they had to go through to achieve them.
The internet used to be a place of refuge. That concept is dead. No longer can a person who is bullied at school find a safe space on the internet because the bully is now on the internet.
I think this just has a profound effect on the search for your rookie prodigy. If you cannot go into Valorant to escape the terrible situation you find yourself in reality then it is harder to spend thousands of hours getting better and becoming a prodigy. If Valorant is now a social event then a person like the pros I mentioned above, wouldn't want to spend time in that place. The more we curate, the more we protect, the harder it will be to find the truly special players who need safe spaces to grow.
Discord