Below is some VERY brief overviews of the invited teams in the upcoming VCL set to start next week. I’ve kept these short intentionally without fleshing out org history just to give you an understanding of every roster (repost for title change and some other minor changes)
M80
-Founded in December 2022, M80 was built from the staff of many former XSET executives. They have picked up the ex-Ghost core of johnqt, koalanoob, and NiSMO, supplemented by zander from V1 and eeiu from NRG
-The ghost core saw some large success in the group stage of Challengers 2 last year, with NiSMO in particular putting up all-star numbers on KAY/O. Zander also proved himself as a serious weapon on smokes throughout 2022, despite V1 having a shorter than expected run in VCT.
-M80 have been touted by many as favorites in Ascension, but they hav e yet to play an official match.
Faze
-Faze ended their 2022 season in disappointment after shuffling their roster around multiple times and barely falling short of international competition.
-As of now, their roster has not been announced. Many speculate the roster will be babybay, dicey, POISED, supamen, and previously neptune was presumed to be the 5th.
-However, neptune posted an LFT post yesterday, squashing these rumors. Possible replacements include Rossy and brawk (speculation)
-Babybay has continued to be a star for FaZe as the only remaining member of their founding roster, and the pioneer of the smeag. Dicey also put up consistency on Chamber that was only paralleled by yay and cryocells at the time, but with the Chamber meta over, its unclear what role he will pick up.
TSM
-An org that needs no introduction, TSM’s invite into the VCL signals their return to higher level valorant after years of stagnant performance after their hot start in 2020.
-TSM have retained their core of seven, gmd, and corey. NaturE was brought in after being on GenG for over a year, and Hazed made his return after a year with NRG
-Corey and seven have both shown spots of brightness throughout 2022, but all 5 players on this roster have shown the ability to step up when it matters. Notably they brought down Sentinels during the Ludwig x Tarik invitational (granted Sentinels had less than a week of practice).
SHOPIFY REBELLION
-SR, an org backed by the online sales platform Shopify, have been at the edge of greatness since 2021, but are now looking to prove themselves in VCL.
-SR have retained mada, bdog, moose, and dazzLe, with v1c taking the place of TiGG.
-mada proved himself throughout 2022 as an incredible raze and flex player, and bdog putting up stellar performances as one of the best oppers throughout 2022.
-However, v1c has taken the spotlight, performing above expectations since joining SR, particularly in the Knights freezeout, which SR went on to win.
THE GUARD
-The oldest core in VCL, The Guard have been around since November 2021 with the core of valyn, JonahP, and neT, supplemented by breakout star Trent, and their newest addition tex from NRG.
-The Guard came out of nowhere in early 2022 by winning Stage 1 challengers, but floundered for the rest of the year before falling 1 match short from Champions at LCQ
-Recently, The Guard won the Ludwig x Tarik invitational, taking down T1, Sentinels, and TSM on their way to the trophy
-Many other Challengers and franchised teams have pointed to The Guard’s dominance in scrims and even in matches, leading them to also be considered favorites for the VCL.
G2
-Another org that needs no introduction, G2 have moved their Valorant operations to NA, and have built a new team from the ground up
-Shahzam and dapr were brought in from the old sentinels roster, penny and wippie from V1, and LFT OXY from Dark Ratio (and ranked, probably).
-As the only other fresh roster aside from M80 in the invited teams, G2’s roster has had some question marks over it, largely because of role conflicts (Oxy and Penny both being jett players, and dapr and wippie both being sentinel players)
-However, G2 has been seen dominating other teams in scrims, particularly franchise teams, leaving them as (in my opinion) the biggest wildcard for VCL.
I’ll be doing a follow-up thread for the teams that played through the qualifiers some time tomorrow. For those of you that don’t care about VCL for NA, below is a thread that covers all partnered teams for all regions. Thanks for reading!
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