TSM’s VALORANT coaching chair didn’t stay vacant for long. The organization announced today that Chet Singh has been brought on as the team’s new head coach.
Chet joins TSM after half a year spent coaching the NRG VALORANT roster before he departed in early April. Prior to transitioning to VALORANT in October 2020, Chet was an accomplished coach for years in CS:GO, most notably with NRG and Evil Geniuses, but also with CLG, OpTic Gaming, and 100 Thieves.
He joins a TSM roster undergoing changes and tweaks after a lackluster first couple stages of the VALORANT Champions Tour. TSM was considered one of North America’s best teams heading into First Strike at the end of 2020, on the shoulders of superior Jett play from Matthew “Wardell” Yu, the savvy veteran leadership of James “hazed” Cobb and Stephen “reltuC” Cutler, and versatile playmaking ability from Yassine “Subroza” Taoufik and Taylor “drone” Johnson.
But the same TSM that looked on par with Sentinels in 2020 didn’t show up at the VCT. In Stage One, they failed to make it out of the first two open qualifiers, then lost back-to-back series on one day of Challengers Three to Luminosity and 100 Thieves, halting them from attending Masters One. They brought in Braxton “brax” Pierce from T1 to play as a sixth man but only used him during the open qualifier for Stage Two’s Challengers One. They made it out of the Challengers Two open qualifiers without him but were eliminated by Andbox just one series away from the Challengers Final.
After this result, TSM moved cutler to the bench and parted ways with coach Taylor “Tailored” Broomall just two days before acquiring Chet. The new coach will have some time to try to bring back the dominant form of TSM and bring out the superstar ability that brax is more than capable of before the start of Stage Three.
Expectations are high for the new coach and the altered roster as they “set [their] sights on Masters Three.” With an expanded format for Masters Three in Berlin, that means there will be an extra slot for a North American team. Perhaps it can be the next version of TSM VALORANT.
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