One of the most successful teams in Valorant professional gaming circles is in deep peril, after Riot Games surprisingly announced a roster that does not contain OpTic Gaming for Valorant Champions Tour (VCT) 2023.
OpTic Gaming — which boasted in 2022 a first-place finish at the Stage 1 Masters (Reykjavik) and second-place finishes at the North America Stage 1 Challengers, the North America Stage 2 Challengers and the VALORANT Champions 2022 — was not included among the 30 partnered teams for VCT 2023.
The fallout of that decision was immediately evident on social media, as team members Victor “Victor” Wong, Austin “crashies” Roberts, Jaccob “yay” Whiteaker and Canadians Jimmy “Marved” Nguyen and Pujan “FNS” Mehta all announced on Twitter their immediate free agent status.
The dissolution of OpTic appears imminent.
Victor and crashies referred to themselves as unrestricted free agents on Twitter, while the other three members said that they were now restricted free agents.
Unrestricted F/A with @Crashies for 2023. Contact @derrick_truong for inquiries.
— OpTic Victor (@victorwong) September 21, 2022
With the recent news that @OpTic denied into the partnership program, I've been allowed to explore new opportunities as a restricted F/A. I am open to all partnership teams in both North America and EMEA.
If interested: DM me or contact my agent @ggbench
— OpTic yay (@yay) September 22, 2022
–Field Level Media