Rostermania is still happening across the VALORANT 2023-2024 off-season, but one signing for an EMEA team is bringing a new Turkish talent under the spotlight of the franchised league—as soon as he turns 18 years old.
Team Heretics have come to a verbal agreement with Turkish flex player Mert “Wo0t” Alkan, formerly of Challengers team Fire Flux Esports, according to blix.gg. With Heretic’s recent departures, this would mark a potential new player for the starting roster in 2024 when he turns 18 in March 2024.
With how Team Heretics performed in 2023, it was clear that changes were needed. The team themselves were aware of it when they benched former Champions MVP Aleksander “zeek” Zygmunt to try and fix their tumultuous season. They finished 2-7 in the EMEA league, finishing eighth and losing to KOI in a close 2-1 match at the Last Chance Qualifier, ending their season. Thanks to the late pickup of Benjy “benjyfishy” Fish for the LCQ, the team looked to be on the rise despite their season ending earlier than hoped.
As the offseason began, another player got benched, this time Auni “AvovA” Chahade. This left four players on the roster from the 2023 season. With Wo0t joining, they have a new potential starting roster, but the roles have yet to be determined. Wo0t is mostly known for his initiator play in recent tournaments, but he got the Turkish league MVP in Split 1 for his Neon, Jett, and Raze. Heretics could have picked up Wo0t for either role in the squad.
There is one caveat to this signing: Wo0t is 17 years old and will not turn 18 until March 16, 2024. So, according to VCT rules, he will be able to join the roster but won’t be available for games until just after a month into the regular season. This means that Heretics will have to sign another player to join the team to fill in the same roles for the first few games. That would make the transition for the other players easier, but Heretics still have AvovA on their inactive roster as a potential call-up.
Either way, only time will tell if Wo0t comes into the league as another solid pickup or someone on the levels of other Turkish phenoms like Emir “Alfajer” Beder and Mehmet “cNed” İpek. Either way, another Turkish player is set to join the franchised league.
