Cover-Credits:
The Valorant esports off season is already off to a sizzling start with many esports players announcing their free agency or moving to new teams. One of the biggest developments is around the Valorant Champions 2023 winning team Evil Geniuses. It has been reported that Evil Geniuses has allowed its starting roster to pursue other offers or take a pay cut to stay with the organization.
Soon after winning Valorant Champions 2023, Evil Geniuses found itself in the limelight as former CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson announced that she was stepping down from her position. In her place, EG appointed Chris De Appolonio as the interim CEO, thus bring about major changes in the organizational structure.
Several Evil Geniuses Valorant players also posted dispirited tweets.
Evil Geniuses Starting Roster Reportedly Given Two Options
On 11th September, Valorant reporter Max “purest” Katz tweeted that the members of the Evil Geniuses Valorant starting roster were reportedly asked to explore other options. However, if they choose to stay with the organization, they would have a pay cut.
Katz tweeted, "Sources: EG has let their starting roster explore their options. If they do stay with the org they would be subjected to a significant pay cut."
Valorant fans and esports followers have been questioning the profitability and sustainability of the industry and pondered about the franchising system introduced by Riot Games this year.
One Twitter user wrote, "wins champions = letting the whole roster go?? EG needs to be removed from Franchising."
Just before Katz broke the news, several Evil Geniuses members posted cryptic tweets. Corbin “C0M” Lee posted a number of tweets which now suggests that he was likely referring to the roster news. He wrote, "Nothing makes sense” and "No matter what you do, it doesn't matter. Winning doesn't matter. Just loved this year and the people I was around no matter what."
Evil Geniuses Ethan ”Ethan” Arnold also added, "I miss old esports. Where if you were good, you were on a good team. Where there was something to grind for, and if you did it successfully, you got to reap the benefits.”
Meanwhile, in-game leader for Evil Geniuses Kelden “Boostio” Pupello simply tweeted, "Wow, just f***ing wow.”
Notably, on 7th September, Evil Geniuses let go of its Valorant team reserves including Brendan "BcJ" Jensen, Jeffrey "Reformed" Lu, Vincent "Apotheon" Le, and Jacob "icy" Lange and coach Addison "zecK" Gorzec.
Unfortunately, Evil Geniuses is the second Valorant team to potentially let go of its entire roster after a major win, with the first being The Guard, which released all of its five players after it won Ascension tournament.
Pointing out how disheartening it is, esports personality and YouTuber Ludwig "Ludwig" Ahgren tweeted, "if being the best team in the f**** world doesn’t guarantee you job security what hope is there for esports."
As we head into the Valorant off-season, we will see more roster-related updates and interesting moves from players and organizations. Notably, Evil Geniuses has not officially confirmed the departure of its Valorant players nor has it announced details about them staying on the team after being subjected to a pay cut.
