After Evil Geniuses won their title at VALORANT Champions 2023, their offseason started controversially due to contractual issues. Nobody is sure what’s happening to the org’s championship roster heading into 2024, but the first domino has fallen as one of the key EG players at the beginning of 2023 is moving on.
Star initiator and former EG starting player BcJ is set to join Challengers team M80, potentially completing their starting five, according to reporter Max “Purest” Katz. This comes a month after reports stated nitr0 is also expected to join the M80 squad, a surprise move after his sudden retirement from Counter-Strike.
As for BcJ, he would move down from tier one VALORANT to tier two, but join a team that is already regarded as a favorite for the Ascension events.
BcJ first made his name on XSET in VALORANT, joining them at the start of 2021. He was part of the same XSET team that competed against teams like Sentinels, 100 Thieves, and Cloud9 to represent NA internationally.
Where BcJ and XSET truly made their mark was topping OpTic Gaming at Stage 2 Challengers in 2022, which helped the team secure their spot at VALORANT Champions. They ended up going on an underdog run before eventually losing to the upcoming Copenhagen champs, FunPlus Phoenix, in the lower bracket quarterfinals.
As the team’s initiator, BcJ was instrumental in their performances, whether he was hitting shots or not. Initiators are the players that gain the most information for teams, no matter if they’re on attack or defense. As the trash talk built up heading into Champions, BcJ marked both himself and regional cohort Austin “crashies” Roberts as the best initiators in the world. His performance at Champions held to that testament, but the close loss to FPX proved the eventual end. It still was a very successful season, and after franchising led to roster chaos, BcJ signed with Evil Geniuses and ended up being their most popular off-season pickup.
BcJ played well in 2023, but Evil Geniuses couldn’t close out games. Then, in one of the biggest surprises of the season, he was taken off the roster and replaced by a recently signed rookie. It seemed to be a rash decision at first, but that rookie turned into the best player in the world; Max “Demon1” Mazanov helped EG go on a run in VCT Americas, finish second at Masters Tokyo, and win Champions 2023.
BcJ officially won the VALORANT world title too, but as a bench player. He didn’t play a minute after his removal from the starting five.
After the reported contractual issues for EG post-title, BcJ seemed to be getting off easily, becoming a free agent on Oct. 11, one month after the team announced it was severing ties with him and other bench players. It’s tough to judge if he’s still a tier-one talent considering the year he had, but it seems the perfect spot in tier-two has opened up for him. M80 was second at Ascension in 2023, only losing to The Guard.
Now, with the potential starting roster of BcJ, nitr0, NiSMO, Zander, and koalanoob, M80 are looking to run it back and get into VALORANT franchising.
