NRG Valorant has revealed its roster for the VCT 2024 Season and on paper, it looks like one of the most stacked rosters this year. NRG hasn’t lived up to their full potential since last year, disappointing fans on many occasions. Will this season be different for one of the best teams in North America? We will find out as soon as the season starts. That being said, let us see how they came to form this roster.
Contents
- NRG Valorant Signs Marved, Demon1, and Ethan To Round Out Their VCT 2024 Roster
- NRG’s Performance Last Year
- Marved’s Performance in Sentinels
- Why Demon1 and Ethan Moved Over to NRG
- The Current Roster and Expectations
NRG Valorant Signs Marved, Demon1, and Ethan To Round Out Their VCT 2024 Roster
NRG has always been one of the fan favorites ever since the Frnachsiing system began in the competitive Valorant scene. The core of NRG in the previous year consisted of Pujan ‘FiNESSE‘ Mehta, Austin ‘crashies‘ Roberts, and Victor ‘Victor’ Wong after separating from OpTic, one of the best teams in North American Valorant history.
Reuniting with his core, Jimmy “Marved” Nguyen makes a comeback to his former team along with two of the most decorated Valorant stars last year in Max ‘Demon1′ Mazanov and Ethan ‘Ethan’ Arnold. The reactions were as expected as everyone was excited to see 5 Championship Winners in one team. However, they look stacked on paper. A lot of teams have succumbed to the hype. NRG has a bar to pass. It will be difficult to do so with the stacked rosters we see in the world.
NRG’s Performance Last Year
With the announcement of NRG being one of the franchise teams, fans quickly started to suspect who the org would sign. The original plan for NRG was to sign the whole OpTic roster but Valorant star Jaccob ‘yay’ Whiteaker’s buyout was too high. So NRG picked up FiNESSE, crashies, and Victor while Marved seemingly took a break from competitive play.
NRG’s performance throughout the year was lackluster as they lost the matches they should have been winning. In the Americas circuit, they had some unexpected losses to MIBR and Leviatan but managed to recover and earn a spot in the Playoffs of Masters Tokyo. They were knocked down to the Lower Bracket of the said tournament by Fnatic in the Upper Bracket Quarter Finals.
NRG managed to win the next few matches but went on to lose in the Lower Round 3 against Paper Rex. They qualified for VCT Champions Groups but lost the first match to Bilibili Gaming. They won their first match against ZETA Division but then went on to lose the rematch against Bilibili again, ending their 2023 season.
Marved’s Performance in Sentinels
Shortly after announcing a break from competing, Marved signed onto the most popular organization in North America, Sentinels. Everyone had high hopes about Marved joining the team as Sentinels were stuck in a rut and had been out of form for a while. Their superteam looked lackluster even with Championship players like Gustavo ‘Sacy‘ Rossi and Bryan ‘pANcada‘ Luna.
Out of the nine matches that Sentinels played with Marved in the 2023 season, they won 4 which is close to a 50% win rate. In terms of performance, Marved underperformed but was backed up by the Duelist and flex players of the team. Sentinel’s performance in the VCT 2023 season was bad as they underperformed with a superteam.
However, if recent matches in the off-season are concerned, they are looking strong and we look forward to seeing them perform in the main season. However, if Marved is concerned, he will no doubt feel at home with the core that he won his first Championship with. It will be exciting to see how VCT 2024 will be for the former OpTic core.
Why Demon1 and Ethan Moved Over to NRG
Evil Geniuses had a meteoric rise in 2023 after barely making it to Masters Tokyo. However, what followed were not just miracle runs but an insane amount of practice and planning on their part. Evil Geniuses moved on to finish 2nd in Masters Tokyo and win the VCT Champions 2023 Trophy by defeating Paper Rex in a world-class bout. Everyone in the Valorant world thought EG would retain this roster when tragedy struck.
Evil Geniuses, following the VCT 2023 season, fired most of their divisions in the organizations. In addition, the org informed the players that they would have their pay cut by 50% if they stayed in the organization. Naturally, the EG players looked for outside offers. Demon1 and Ethan found their place in NRG while the status of Alexander ‘jawgemo‘ Mor, Kelden ‘Boostio‘ Pupello, and Corbin ‘c0m‘ Lee is unknown.
Demon1 was primarily a Jett player for EG but occasionally played the flex role of Astra and Chamber. Ethan on the other hand is one of the best Initiators in the game and has a varied Agent pool consisting of Kayo, Skye, Sage, and Omen. They are no doubt going to help NRG in obtaining some semblance of success in the Americas circuit, but it is too early to tell.
The Current Roster and Expectations
With the introduction of Ethan, Demon1, and Marved, NRG Valorant has rounded off its roster for the VCT 2024 Season. Their current roster is as follows:
- Max ‘Demon1′ Mazanov
- Austin ‘crashies‘ Roberts
- Ethan ‘Ethan’ Arnold
- Jimmy “Marved” Nguyen
- Victor ‘Victor’ Wong
- Chet ‘Chet‘ Singh (Coach)
People’s expectations of this roster have never been so high as they have experienced players who have done it all. NRG has yet to compete in an off-season match and we doubt that is going to happen. That is why, we will have to wait and see until the official season starts. The Americas Circuit starts on February 17th, 2024.
The circuit, this time will have 11 teams including G2 because the core won the Ascension League this year. It will be interesting to see how this NRG holds up with revamped rosters with stronger players and the ones who have the experience to back up their skills.
