nitr0 steps down as M80 starter, neT onboarded

M80 M80 North America Rank #6 Kyu Mirel Braco Hrustemovic Sato Eduardo Kenzo Nagahama Sato bao Okeanos Anthony Nguyen bdog Brandon Sanders have announced that in-game leader Nick "nitr0" Cannella will take a step back from the active roster while Michael "neT" Bernet steps in for the foreseeable future. This roster change comes five months after the organization acquired the FPS veteran to complete their Challengers roster.

After dominating the competition in the earlier stages of Valorant's release, nitr0 temporarily departed the scene to pursue an opportunity in the form of Team Liquid Team Liquid Europe Rank #12 paTiTek Patryk Fabrowski kamyk Maks Rychlewski nAts Ayaz Akhmetshin Keiko Georgio Sanassy kamo Kamil Frąckowiak 's Counter Strike: Global Offensive division. Five months ago in January, Captain America returned to Valorant and signed with Ascension runner-ups M80 to compete in Challengers.

After two top-four finishes at both Stage 1 and the Mid-Season Cup, nitr0 has stepped down from the active roster and repositioned himself on the bench while the organization continues their Challengers run. M80 still have a good amount of remaining Stage 2 matches to be played with neT.

Once a part of the storied roster that won the first-ever Americas Ascension, neT's debut in Tier 1 under G2 Esports G2 Esports North America Rank #1 jawgemo Alexander Mor trent Trent Cairns valyn Jacob Batio JonahP Jonah Pulice leaf Nathan Orf was short-lived. The former core of The Guard The Guard Inactive JonahP Jonah Pulice trent Trent Cairns neT Michael Bernet valyn Jacob Batio tex Ian Botsch put up a good fight against their regional competition, but still struggled to the point of failing to qualify for international events.

neT ascension image neT was one of the five who hoisted the 2023 Americas Ascension trophy. (Photo: Pavilhão Pacaembu/Riot Games)

After missing out on Masters Madrid, G2 opted to bid farewell to neT and signed Jacob "icy" Lange in his place, leaving the Sentinel player without a team to represent as competition resumed throughout the VCT.

Despite their results, M80 seem to be slightly out of form compared to their performances last year. However, the team is still very much in contention to snag an appearance at 2024's Americas Ascension should they slightly improve their performance. The new iteration of the roster will debut today at 7 EST against Blinn Blinn Inactive for their Week 2 match.

M80 M80 North America Rank #6 Kyu Mirel Braco Hrustemovic Sato Eduardo Kenzo Nagahama Sato bao Okeanos Anthony Nguyen bdog Brandon Sanders is now:

Alexander "zander" Dituri
Marc-Andre "NiSMO" Tayar
Gianfranco "koalanoob" Potestio
Brendan "BcJ" Jensen
Michael "neT" Bernet
Vincent "Happy" Schopenhauer (Head coach)
Luke "GUNTER" Clives (Coach)

There's a big difference between "Most teams have at least one cs player" and "85% of all players are from CS"

Let's go through the recent successful rosters

2023 Fnatic
Boaster and Derke played CS professionally; Leo, Alfa and Chron did not.

2023 EG
C0m and Ethan played CS; jawg, Demon1 and Boostio did not

2024 Sentinels
Zellsis and TenZ played CS; Sacy, zekken did not. Johnqt apparently has like 27 maps on record, so not really, but let's count him.

Let's throw the current top 4 at Shanghai in as well to get some more data
G2
JonahP, leaf yes; trent, icy, valyn no

GenG
Lakia yes; Meteor, Karon, t3xture, Munchkin no

100T (excl Boostio because I already counted him above)
None of them as far as I can tell

TH
Pati yes; Benjy, wo0t, Riens, MiniBoo no. Boo also has a couple of matches for some teams that as far as I can tell aren't even salaried ors, but let's be generous and count him as well.

That's a sample size of 35 players, and only 12 of them played CS professionally. That's less than half. And the number is getting smaller and smaller every year. All the rising stars like Benjy, N4rrate and whatnot do not have CS careers.

Yeah early Valorant built its esports on the back of former CS pros, but those times are over. The only ex-CS players that are successful in Valorant are the ones that switched early (2020-21) and have fully focused on Valorant for years.