FaZe Clan’s Valorant IGL Kevin ‘poised’ Ngo revealed that he has been dealing with numbness in his palms and fingertips for the past five years due to a “freak” forearm and hand injury that cut open the muscles and nerves on his appendage.
The Valorant IGL detailed his journey in esports while dealing with the injury. poised said that initially after the accident he couldn’t feel anything in his hand to his elbow and doctors told him he would never regain feeling in his palm or fingertips again.
Before the accident, poised was a rising talent in CS:GO and then switched to Valorant almost as soon as the game launched. The FaZe Clan player documented in his post how he went to physical therapy to be able to move his arm again and eventually regained feeling, but not in the areas that impact gaming like his palm and fingertips.
“I never gave up, I realized that I can still play, but now have to trust what I see, and use spatial cognitive ability/senses to even press down my keys. Anyone who plays a high level of Valorant or CS:GO understands that even 1 millisecond of hesitation means your death, one miss-click or miss-input can cost an entire round or game even. Nobody will ever understand this difficulty as I’m probably the first pro player that cannot feel his keyboard hand,” poised said via Twitlonger.
Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates on Esports, Gaming and more.
poised reveals long-time injury that has impacted Valorant career
The FaZe Clan player said that he picked up IGLing to make up for his injury and still managed to make a career for himself in Valorant. FaZe was one series win away from qualifying for an international tournament in 2022 and poised led a Rise team that almost went to Valorant Champions 2021 before losing in the finals of the Last Chance Qualifier.
The player said the impetus for revealing his injury to the public was that he has regained a slight feeling in his fingertips.
The IGL is set to compete in the North American Challengers League with FaZe Clan. His team has yet to reveal its full roster at the time of writing as only poised and Andrej ‘babybay’ Francisty are listed as active players.