Is SkRossi Ready to Become an International Valorant Star?

When it comes to esports, India has never really been seen as a heavyweight region that produces exceptionally skilled PC FPS (first-person shooter) players. Despite its success in mobile esports through games like PUBG Mobile and Free Fire, the region has generally failed to produce world-class athletes for games like CS:GO.

So, when international Valorant players and streamers started getting messages on their Twitch chats asking if they knew who “SkRossi” was, it started to raise a few eyebrows. The tipping point was likely when Shahzeb "ShahZaM" Khan (Sentinels, IGL) admitted, “Of course I know who SkRossi is, he seems cracked!”

This was just the trailer though, of what was to hit the global scene with the advent and rise of a talented Indian Valorant player, who had gotten the entire community talking about the untapped potential of the South Asian region.

Things finally appeared to be changing for the better, as the 23-year-old from Bengaluru stepped up and delivered beyond what others thought was possible as a Valorant player from the region. Allowing his ridiculously amazing Jett plays to do all the talking, Ganesh "SkRossi" Gangadhar broke into the international Valorant scene with the Valorant Champions Tour (VCT) 2021: Asia Pacific (APAC) Last Chance Qualifier (LCQ) in October 2021, and the buzz that he created was surreal!

Many in the global Valorant community are talking about him, be it in the form of praises, doubts, or questions. But did his debut performance at the Asia-Pacific Valorant tournament actually live up to all the hype? How far ahead did his Jett dash against others from the APAC region? Does he have what it takes to take things to the next level and perhaps move to an international lineup?

To answer these and more, we spoke with Seth "Achilios" King, Nico "BlackenBlue" Gayoso, Clinton "Paperthin" Bader, Franco "Ilustrado" Bernardino, Rushindra “Salbatic” Sinha, and even the man himself, SkRossi.

The Face of South Asian Valorant - SkRossi

North American talent Seth "Achilios" King, caster of this event, was surprised to see that SkRossi mostly held up to the expectations following the buzz that surrounded him prior to the tournament. Despite playing only three matches, the Jett main was able to leave a lasting impression due to his stellar performances, with Filipino analyst Nico "BlackenBlue" Gayoso confidently stating that, “SkRossi is what the VCC needs. Someone to be the face of their region (South Asia) on the global stage, so it's definitely worth every piece of praise he has received.”

Though SkRossi’s overall stats were not the best at the VCT 2021: APAC LCQ when compared to other players, he held his own and earned a spot within the top 20 players at the tournament. “He showed flashes of brilliance and some solid mechanical skills,” says North American commentator Clinton "Paperthin" Bader while highlighting his debut performance against DAMWON Gaming.

A lot of the other talent, players, and even Valorant community members have poured in their support, backing up SkRossi for what he has achieved and all that lies ahead. But today, we’re going to answer a few hard-hitting questions to ‘de-cypher’ the true potential of this South Asian phenom.

Did the hype around SkRossi meet Valorant fans’ expectations?

For more than a year SkRossi competed within the South Asian region slowly climbing the ladder, building the reputation of being an incredibly skilled player, especially on Jett when armed with an Operator. He finally got a platform to test his skills against some of the top Valorant teams and Jett players from across the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region in October 2021 at VCT 2021: APAC LCQ. To put it simply, he passed with flying colors.

SkRossi’s performance was integral to the overall success of his Valorant team - Global Esports (GE), at the tournament. When he was firing on all cylinders, GE looked like a completely different team while his off-games, like the ones against Paper Rex, saw the team struggling significantly.

In the match against Paper Rex, where SkRossi failed to find his footing, Global Esports collapsed winning just three out of the 29 rounds played in that series, with a horrifying win rate of just 10.35%. In comparison, despite losing to F4Q in the eliminator match, GE put up a commendable fight with SkRossi leading the side from the front across all three maps.

This illustrates the impact he has as a duelist who finds the opening frags, makes those difficult contact plays, and gives his side the momentum required to snowball. So when it comes to making plays or taking fights, SkRossi can get the job done with a high rate of success against the best teams from the APAC region.

During the VCT 2021: APAC LCQ he maintained an overall Average Combat Score (ACS) of 245.75 while securing an average of 18.25 frags per match and dying 15.25 times on average. Moreover, despite having a hard time connecting headshots with an average headshot percentage of 17.8%, SkRossi made up for it with his fast reactions and good positioning which rewarded him with 4.75 first kills and an Average Damage per Round (ADR) of 134.54 on average.

While the stats indicate that SkRossi’s performances are good enough to allow him to be counted as one of the top Valorant players in the region, there are still certain aspects that he needs to improve upon.

“Individually his play is strong and he can probably go toe-to-toe with a lot of the stars from the major regions,” said NA talent Achilos, “However, I think that consistency and decision-making are things that need to be worked upon. We saw him really pop against DWG but then was widely absent when facing Paper Rex, where the burden of carrying was mainly put on the shoulders of skillZ (Jayanth Ramesh). Then against F4Q, he had an incredible performance, going +24 (K/D) with 76 frags across the series, but we saw him make errors that cost GE crucial rounds.”

Achilos elaborated on this by stating,

It is clear that SkRossi is one of the best Jett mains around in the APAC region, but how good are the GE duelist’s stats when compared against some of the best that APAC has to offer?

How does SkRossi’s Jett size up against others from the APAC region?

Jett has been the most preferred agent for all the duelists globally. We have Valorant superstars from every region including Tyson "TenZ" Ngo, Mehmet Yağız "cNed" İpek, and Wassim "keloqz" Cista frequently dominating the server single-handedly with this agent. Jett has a high mechanical skill ceiling due to her movement-based skill set and an ultimate which rewards players with a steady aim.

SkRossi who is considered to be one of the best Jett players in South Asia did impress everyone with his gameplay on the agent when going against the APAC teams. In fact, it’s the only agent he played in the entirety of the VCT 2021: APAC LCQ, with a total of 104 rounds on Jett during the event!

In total 12 players at the tournament had played Jett, but not all of them played her exclusively. As this would result in a skewed comparison, only those players who had played more than 100 rounds with the agent have been shortlisted for this comparison.

“I think SkRossi is definitely up there with the APAC duelists, but he's not top three yet IMHO. There's Patiphan (Patiphan Chaiwong), F0rsaken (Jason Susanto), JohnOlsen (Chanawin Nakchain), Dubstep (Jayvee Paguirigan), and many more,” says Filipino caster and host Franco "Ilustrado" Bernardino from an SEA (Southeast Asia) centric point of view.

Filipino analyst BlackenBlue also agreed with this sentiment, stating that he would not put SkRossi in the top five Jett players from the APAC region just yet, as there is still a thin line separating him from players like Seoldam, F0rsaken, Dubstep, and others. However, his impressive first-time performance definitely puts him in the top 10 and BlackenBlue expects him to come back stronger when the official circuit returns in 2022.

American commentator Paperthin echoed similar feelings, stating that SkRossi definitely makes an argument for being one of the top ten Jett players in the APAC region, and maybe even the top five. But if we were to only consider the performances at VCT 2021: APAC LCQ he thinks SkRossi was amongst the top three.

While comparing SkRossi to the Korean and other international players, Achilios points out that though he is a treat to watch, it is the dips in his performance that stopped him from prominently being known as ‘one of the best in the world’.

Is SkRossi ready to join an international roster? Should he consider making this move?

In the past, South Asia witnessed the transfer of veteran PC FPS player Tejas "Ace" Sawant to an Indonesian CS:GO roster called EXECUTIONERS. He played with the organization for roughly nine months from Jan-Nov 2018, gaining much-needed international exposure to grow as a player.

He returned to India and joined Team Signify which went on to become one of the most successful CS:GO teams from South Asia. It also paved the way for future international transfers from the region with Singaporean organization Paper Rex loaning Indian star rifler Debanjan “DEATHMAKER” Das for a couple of tournaments, followed by Jayanth "SkillZ" Ramesh going on to join another Singapore based organization Asking Questions.

With the region having a history where a few players have managed to join international esports organizations, this is certainly an avenue that might attract SkRossi’s attention as well. However, a few factors that play an important role when making this decision are the finances associated with the transfer, clarity of work permits, obtaining a visa, accessibility to the agreement beforehand while also choosing to stay away from home, family, and friends for an extended period of time.

From a pure gameplay perspective, NA’s Paperthin is of the opinion that SkRossi has what it takes to join an international roster, but it is a decision that should come from him more than anything else. “I definitely think he can find an international team,” adds Paperthin while pointing out that SkRossi is both a solid operator player and also has good fragging instincts.

However, such a move would also depend on how well he could integrate into other rosters in the APAC region. BlackenBlue expressed his reservations on the subject.

Ilustrado however believes that SkRossi should not be making a move to an international team. He said, “I don’t think that making a move to an international roster would be the right move for him.” This is because he believes that growing organically will be the better option for both SkRossi and the APAC region, because “the more competitive the region is, the more we'll grow and be able to take down other more popular regions.”

While sharing an opinion closer to that of Ilustrado, Achilios points out two important things about SkRossi that could make or break a move to an international roster. The first is SkRossi’s fluency in English which acts as a bonus for him, and the second is his shallow agent depth which is a matter of huge concern and could limit his opportunities.

At the VCT 2021: APAC LCQ, SkRossi played Jett in all the three matches that GE played. He has a Jett pick rate of 93.5% in all the competitive matches that he has ever competed in and has only played 13 games with other agents.

This makes him highly susceptible to meta changes as a nerfed Jett could turn out to be a huge handicap for him. His abilities on agents other than Jett still remain a mystery thanks to the limited available data but Achilios says that,

SkRossi and Global Esports on his Jett and potential for an International Transfer

To get a clearer picture we approached SkRossi, who admits that though there are a lot of other agents that he can play with, his impact is not at the same level when he plays on other agents in comparison to Jett. SkRossi explained that since the start he had only been spamming Jett. So naturally, he didn’t get a lot of time to invest in perfecting other agents.

He also states that Jett enables him to play very aggressively with an operator when compared to other agents, which aligns with Global Esports’ game strategy. The team doesn't want him to play any other agent for now, as their game plan is really strong with him on Jett.

As for his thoughts on an international transfer, SkRossi expressed that his decision would depend on the team he was getting an offer from if such an opportunity was to come his way. “I just want to reach new heights,” he stated.

He explained this by comparing the state of Indian Valorant to the international scene, “India has only four or five good teams currently and God knows how many chances we will get to compete internationally, whereas outside there are plenty of really skilled teams with a lot of opportunities to compete in international events.”

However, all said and done SkRossi at the moment seems to have absolutely no plans of moving outside the country, “For now, I don’t have any thoughts in mind to play for an international team. My current goal is to be the best team in SEA (Southeast Asia) with GE and I also want to compete against more international teams in tournaments often.”

Finally, Rushindra “Salbatic” Sinha - CEO and Founder of GE, indicated that SkRossi isn’t going anywhere else, anytime soon.

This has been a breakout year for SkRossi, who created a lot of noise walking into the VCT 2021: APAC LCQ, maintained it while he performed, and definitely delivered something worthy of all the praise that he has received ever since.

Personally, I would love to see SkRossi continue to play and practice within the South Asian region itself. He is literally the face of South Asian Valorant for now, a representation of the talent and potential that this region has in abundance but remains untapped. His international debut was enough to create ripples across the global scene, attracting eyeballs from all corners of the world, as the community started talking about him, his team, and ultimately the region. This is probably the most that the region has been discussed on such a level ever since Valorant was released, which is crucial to remaining important in the eyes of the developers.

Sure, if SKRossi was to move to an international roster he would definitely grow as a player, gain more experience, and get opportunities to achieve a lot more. It might not be easy settling down but he would eventually find a way to use the resources available and excel, similar to how one of the best CS:GO players in the world, Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev, despite a troubled time on Team Liquid used it as a base to propel his career forward.

However, this might only benefit him as an individual Valorant player as opposed to carrying the whole region forward with him if he was to stay, continue the grind, and show positive results in the upcoming tournaments. If he decides to do so, there is a chance that the region might hold him back from reaching his truest potential, and a few years down the line it might become too late to seek international offers.

To ensure that nothing of the sort happens, here are a few things that can be done to compensate for the lack of experience and exposure. Continued work with an international coach seems integral as this could help both him and his team achieve a lot more, something his current team GE has already experimented with for the VCT 2021: APAC LCQ. Another such exercise could be collaborations with international Valorant teams for training sessions like the one between Velocity Gaming and Gen.G Esports which took place recently.

In a nutshell, SkRossi has successfully proved that the South Asian region does in fact have a lot of potential and that he is a hell of a beast within the server. Hopefully, we will have more to celebrate next year along with a new competitive season.