Rostermania 2024 is almost coming to an end as the VCT 2024 season starts next month in February. However, the Tier 2 scene of the game is still developing and amid the roster moves, we have m80 who almost made it into the Tier 1 scene last year. This time, they are armed and ready to make it into Tier 1. To do that, they have brought Cap himself, Nick “nitr0” Cannella into their team. Let us see how Nitro can bring about changes to m80 Valorant going into Challengers 2024.
Contents
- CS Legend Nitro Returns to Valorant and Joins m80 For VCT Challengers 2024
- Why Nitro Left Valorant for CS
- Nitro’s Performance in Valorant
- M80’s Performance in Valorant
- The Current Team and Expectations
CS Legend Nitro Returns to Valorant and Joins m80 For VCT Challengers 2024
Nitro was one of the first professional players to participate in Valorant competitive after transitioning over from Counter-Strike when the game first came out in 2020. M80 is set to compete in the Challengers League in 2024 and their ultimate goal is to reach the Tier 1 scene. Nitro will also be the in-game leader of the current roster which has some of the most talented players in the NA pro circuit.
In this piece, we are going to discuss Nitro’s brief Valorant career before joining CS in 2022 and also see what this roster can accomplish and if they have the potential to win the Challengers League in 2024. All eyes will be on m80 once the Challengers League starts since they have so much firepower in their team.
Why Nitro Left Valorant for CS
Sources: M80 are set to re-sign koalanoob, zander, and nism0 to its VALORANT roster.
They are also set to add former 100T player and Liquid IGL, nitr0 to its roster.
Their 5th is undecided at the moment.#VCT
— Max Katz (@purest) September 14, 2023
Nitro joined 100T when Valorant first came out and there were rumors of Riot forming a competitive league for it. 100T had little success during the entire life cycle of the game, making it to international events but never converting them into championship wins. He primarily alternated between playing a Duelist and a Controller. However, as time went on, the skill ceiling for the game increased and 100T was no longer the best of the best.
Therefore, Nitro left 100T because of the stagnant nature of the organization and went back home to Team Liquid. Previously, when he competed with Team Liquid, he found massive success. However, when he went back to CS GO, he almost came close to winning a championship when he reached the finals with Team Liquid in BLAST Premier: World Final 2022.
After more than a year of competing with Liquid, Purest reported in the tweet above that Nitro would be returning to Valorant and signing with m80.
Nitro’s Performance in Valorant
Nitro was never a weak link in his time with 100T. However, they did not make waves as they were highly inconsistent and they never won anything except Valorant First Strike which was the first Valorant tournament held professionally in most regions. They also won the VCT 2021: North America Stage 2 Challengers 1 against XSET.
100T also managed to qualify for a Masters tournament where they made an impossible comeback against Acend which elevated their momentum and boosted their confidence. However, they lost to Team Envy in the Semi-Finals. Nitro along with 100T had a chance to still qualify for Valorant Champions but they finished 3rd place and did not qualify for Champions. That kickstarted Nitro’s return to CS: GO.
M80’s Performance in Valorant
M80 had a dominating run in the Tier 2 Valorant and easily made it to the Ascension League where they ran through most of the teams present except The Guard. The Guard went on to win the tournament. However, due to some issues within the organization, they failed to make Ascension which prompted Riot to make drastic decisions to accommodate the players who deserved the win. G2 joined the Tier One Americas League instead of The Guard.
m80 got as close to the finals of the Ascension League but could not convert the win. However, they will get another chance at obtaining Tier One status this year with the induction of Nitro since he has tons of experience and great IGLing capability. m80 is sure to make waves and breeze through competition just like they did last year.
m80 won Split 1 and the Faceoff of the North American Challengers League in 2023. They finished 3rd in Split 2 and 1st in the Playoffs which comfortably qualified them for the Ascension League. They went on to lose just a single match before qualifying for the Ascension Playoffs. In the Playoffs, they lost in the Upper Bracket Semi-finals against the Guard 2-0. They won all their Lower Bracket matches and faced The Guard again in the Finals which they lost. This ended their run.
The Current Team and Expectations
M80 VALORANT is back.@nitr0@zander_fps@BcJFPS@NiSMO_VAL@koalanoob@Happy1 (C)@gunterispenguin (A) pic.twitter.com/re0kACXc68
— M80 (@M80gg) January 4, 2024
The current team consists of three members of m80 who played last year and two new additions with varying levels of experience. They are bound to be even more dominant and reach a level of consistency unattained previously. The team currently is:
- Alexander “zander” Dituri
- Marc-Andre “NiSMO” Tayar
- Gianfranco “koalanoob” Potestio
- Nick “nitr0” Cannella
- Brendan “BcJ” Jensen
- Vincent “Happy” Schopenhauer (Head coach)
- “GUNTER” (Coach)
Zander, NisMO, and koalanoob have tons of experience playing together and are the core of m80. BcJ has been an instrumental part of XSET’s success in the pre-franchise era. Nitro is coming in as the in-game leader for the team which is a good move. It is unknown what Agent archetype he is going to play but we suspect he would be a Controller or a Sentinel depending on his past.
Since koalanoob is a primary Duelist most of the time, we are guessing that Nitro is not going to play a Duelist most of the time. However, it will be interesting to see what m80 has in store for us for the next season. Most of the games for the VCT 2024 Challengers Season will begin this month and will last till August.
