Ex-Cloud9 Valorant Player ‘Shinobi’ Has Allegedly Joined Global Esports as its Head Coach for LCQ

After a week of speculations, Global Esports has officially confirmed that former Cloud9 Valorant player Josh "shinobi" Abastado will be joining the Indian esports organization as a head coach. Shinobi will be working with the Valorant roster, which is set to compete in the upcoming Valorant Champions Tour: APAC Last Chance Qualifiers event. Shinobi is an inactive professional player who is one of the few that has competed alongside Tyson "TenZ" Ngo under the Cloud9 banner.

Shinobi is joining as a temporary coach for the Global Esports Valorant roster

Speculations of shinobi first circulated after Global Esports players Ganesh ‘SkRossi’ Gangadhar and Bhavin ‘HellRanger’ Kotwani hinted at the arrival of a new coach. SK Rossi revealed on stream that Shinobi is joining as a temporary coach and the former Cloud9 player’s position as a full-time coach in GE is unlikely as of now. Shinobi is already working with the team and will be coaching the team for the upcoming Valorant Champions Tour APAC LCQ which will kick off on 11^th October.

Global Esports recently announced that the Valorant roster is heading to Thailand ahead of the APAC LCQ event to be able to compete at low latency. Since the ping to Singapore servers in Valorant is much higher compared to the latency other teams will be experiencing, Global Esports seeks to make the competition as fair as possible for its players. The team is ranked sixth in the APAC leaderboards on VLR.GG and it will be looking to prove itself on the global stage.

Global Esports qualified for the VCT: APAC LCQ event after beating Velocity Gaming at the Valorant Conquerors Championship. If GE wins the upcoming APAC LCQ event, the team will be the first Indian team to qualify for Valorant Champions. The LCQ tournament will take place from 11th to 17th October. The format of the upcoming event is being modified by Riot Games as Chinese teams and ZETA Division will not be participating in the upcoming event.

Global Esports will not be competing against other SEA teams in the initial rounds which means that the team will be facing tough competition from teams of other regions. The fate of Indian Valorant rides on Global Esports’ shoulders at the APAC LCQ 2021 and the signing of Shinobi as a coach might give the team the edge when competing at a global level.