Every Tuesday evening we bring you the latest player transfers from the world of esports. After its official release, Valorant is getting more and more popular.
With Skadoodle, Hiko, and dapr, three more CS:GO pros are switching to Valorant, and League of Legends legend Uzi is ending his playing career due to ongoing injuries.
CS:GO: Another loss to Valorant
Xeta's switching to Valorant
The CS:GO scene loses another player to Riot Games new tactical shooter Valorant. Seonho "Xeta" Son announced to end his CS:GO career and switch to Valorant.
Retirement from CSGORead: https://t.co/CtzScp96OR
— C9 xeta (@OfficialXETA) June 8, 2020
Today we are announcing that Seonho "Xeta" Son has decided to retire from CSGO and start a new journey in #VALORANT.We respect his decision, and thank him for all the professionalism and skill he brought to the team.We wish all the best for his future endeavors. pic.twitter.com/q2xqn1X0jQ
— TYLOO (@tyloogaming) June 8, 2020
Xeta played in Korea for a long time for GOSU among others before he joined the Chinese team TYLOO at the beginning of the year. He played several big events, such as IEM Chicago 2018, IEM Sydney 2019, ESL One Cologne 2019 and IEM Katowice 2020. Only recently he was put on the bench after his return from the gaming house in Kiev due to the corona pandemic. Now he announced that he wants to continue his career in Valorant.
Secret: tudsoN is now a free agent
Filip "tudsoN" Tudev separates from Secret and is now a free agent.
As of today i am officially a FREE AGENT!I would like to thank @teamsecret for everything! The experience i gained over the few months is remarkableI am open to all offers as an AWPER! you can hit me up in DM or tudson@knacks.proRT's appreciated
— Filip (@tudsoNN) June 2, 2020
TudsoN was originally part of the m1x roster, which was taken over by Secret last November. He is the second player after rigoN to leave the roster since then. In mid-May he was put on the bench by Secret after he announced he wanted to play as an AWPer again, as they preferred to continue playing with Guy "anarkez" Trachtmann. It has now been agreed that tudsoN will leave the team. According to his tweet, he is looking for a new team, but he wants to play as AWPer. We hope for his sake that he finds a team quickly before we lose him to Valorant as well.
DETONA: The roster is complete.
The Brazilian organization DETONA has completed its CS:GO roster with Renato "nak" Nakano, Romeu "zevy" Rocco and Guilherme "pitiaz1n" Barbosa.
Chegai pra receber nossos novos pitbulls O grande @nakfps chega quente para comandar como novo IGL, ao lado da grande revelacao @piriajrcs e nosso AWPer rei da POUND @zevycs_ !Com @rikzfps de volta como coach, estamos reforcados e prontos para o segundo semestre #GODETONA pic.twitter.com/Dz76PV4Q9d
— DETONA GAMING (@DETONAgOficial) June 4, 2020
The 32-year-old nak is a Brazilian veteran of the CS:GO scene and recently left the RED Canids. Now he will lead the DETONA roster as IGL. Zevy is moving up from the organization's own academy team and piriaz1n is another promising young player who previously played for Keyd.
Valorant: Even more CS:GO pros switch sides
T1: Skadoodle completes the roster
Former CS:GO pro Tyler "Skadoodle" Latham completes T1's first Valorant roster.
Beyond excited to compete again, I'm very thankful for the opportunity and to pursue my passion once again makes me incredibly happy. https://t.co/t4BKtTpLAf
— Tyler Latham (@Ska) June 3, 2020
T1 was the first organization to start building a Valorant roster early in the closed beta - Brax was the first player to switch. AZK followed soon after, followed by crashies, food and fRoD. Skadoodle now completes the roster and is reunited with his former teammates from iBUYPOWER, Brax and AZK. T1, however, this team doesn't seem to have enough, as they recently announced that they plan to start the race with three Valorant rosters - the US team, a Korean team and an Academy team.
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100 Thieves: Hiko as the first Valorant-Pro
00 Thieves are also starting their own Valorant roster. CS:GO veteran Spencer "Hiko" Martin is the first player on the new team.
100 THIEVES ENTERS VALORANTPlease join us in welcoming our brand new team captain, @Hiko! #100T pic.twitter.com/DAiAynyyIO
— 100 Thieves (@100Thieves) June 4, 2020
Hiko has been active in CS for 18 years and started his CS:GO career almost ten years ago. In 2013 he was even named the ninth-best player. He has played for Cloud9, Team Liquid, OpTic and Rogue, among others, and participated in numerous majors. He has been a free agent for a year now and has complained several times about how few opportunities the CS:GO scene offers to veterans like him. With Valorant he now sees a new chance to give his career a restart.
Sentinels: dapr completes the roster
The organization announced that CS:GO professional Michael "dapr" Gulino will complete their Valorant roster.
Launching with a full squad.Introducing: @daprcs pic.twitter.com/36Lt5lVJmh
— Sentinels (@Sentinels) June 1, 2020
The Sentinels roster consists of some of the top names in the esports scene, such as Overwatch legend Sinatraa and former CS:GO pros ShahZaM, SicK and Zombs. Dapr is especially known for his time at eUnited, for which he regularly participated in the ESL and FACEIT Pro League. After his last team, the Bad News Bears, disbanded, he already announced that he would be switching to Valorant. With the Sentinels he has definitely found one of the most promising teams. We are curious about what else we will see.
Dota 2: Two completely new teams
B8: Only Dendi left
After a 24 defeats record Dendi completely restructures his team. Except for him, none of the former players are still around.
Did you miss the tournament games? We did! We received an invitation to closed qualifications for BEYOND EPIC. The start is tomorrow.We will try to break the losing streak with the following roster:1 Crystallis NL2 Dendi UA3 LastHero BY4 5up DE5 fishman BY#b8d pic.twitter.com/RL25QnedbH
— B8 (@B8esportsGG) June 7, 2020
The new members are relatively unknown and have little or no experience in competitive Dota 2, most of them are from tier two CIS teams and the hope is that they can pull themselves together to a successful team. It remains to be seen what Dendi can do with Crystallis, LastHero, 5up and fishman, but yesterday they won their first game in a long time. In any case, we wish them more success than they had with the old roster.
EXTREMUM: A new CIS team enters the game
The CIS roster, which has been inactive since the beginning of May, is parting ways with three players and bringing new blood to the team with Dmitry "Nefrit" Tarasich, Maxim "mellojul" Pnyov and Vasily "AfterLife" Shishkin.
EXTREMUM DOTA 2 ROSTER pic.twitter.com/wDejHlNRbQ
— EXTREMUM #OURWAY (@extremumgg) June 7, 2020
Abdimalik "Malik" Sajlau and Vladislav "BLACKARXANGEL" Ivashchenko remain inactive in the team, only Egor ".Ark" Zhabotinskii leaves it completely. With Nefrit and AfterLife EXTREMUM picked up two very talented veterans of the scene, who should form a strong team together with mellojul, as well as Fedor "Velheor" Rusihin and Sergey "God" Bragin. It remains to be seen how the new roster will perform.
League of Legends: A Legend Ends
RNG: Uzi ends his playing career
Jian "Uzi" Zi-Hao is now ending his competitive career completely due to several ongoing wrist and shoulder injuries that had already led to a break during the Spring Split 2020.
Due to injuries accumulated over 8 years of high intensity training, at the suggestion of medical professionals, Uzi was advised to rest during the 2020 LPL spring split. After spring a decision was made and we understood and respected his wishes, and will continue to assist him.
— Royal Never Give Up (@RNGRoyal) June 3, 2020
Uzi has been with LoL almost since the start of LoL with eight active years. Over the years, he has built a reputation as an extremely mechanically skilled player, reaching two World Cup finals, winning a Mid-Season Invitational and several Chinese trophies. He is considered one of the best LoL players of all time, scoring the most kills in the 2014 and 2017 Worlds, and is also the first player to achieve the total of 2000 kills in all leagues. Due to years of intensive training Uzi suffered several injuries and repeatedly had problems with his wrists and shoulders, which he could not control even with breaks in the game. Nothing is known about his future plans yet, but we hope to see a lot more of him, be it as a streamer or maybe even as a coach.
Call of Duty: Three-time world champion retires
Seattle Surge: Karma ends his gaming career
Three-time CoD world champion Damon "Karma" Barlow ends his career as a CoD professional.
Damon "Karma" Barlow has chosen to retire from competitive play. Congratulations to without question the greatest of all time. pic.twitter.com/iAekHPmwsd
— Seattle Surge (@SeattleSurge) June 4, 2020
Karma is known in the Call of Duty community as GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) and played last for Seattle Surge. He has been active in CoD for almost ten years and won a total of three world championships with Impact, comPlexity and OpTic Gaming. He explains his decision with the fact that he does not like the current Call of Duty and that he has lost the desire to play. He does not want to return with a new part of the series either, as he is convinced that this will also bore him after a few months at the latest. However, a tweet that followed shortly after suggests that Karma might be making a return as a coach.
I'll be back pic.twitter.com/bXS0n03luu
— Damon B (@DKarma) June 4, 2020
FIFA: SpiderKong is on the lookout
AS Roma Esports: SpiderKong's contract expires
Miguel "SpiderKong" Bilhar's contract with AS Roma Esports ends in September and he is already looking for a new team.
Mais um monstro no mercado! https://t.co/20G9IfZkss
— Miguel Bilhar/ SpiderKong (@TheSpiderKong) June 9, 2020
On Twitter, SpiderKong thanks Roma, his coach and his teammates and announces that he has been given permission to start looking for a new club for next season. He stresses that he intends to find a new team and also lists some of his successes, such as the ninth place in the world rankings in FIFA 20 or Brazilian champions in FIFA 17. We wish him good luck in his search.
These were the most important changes in the esports player market from last week. You can catch up on past player transfers at any time on EarlyGame.