Former OpTic Gaming and NRG Esports IGL Pujan ‘FNS’ Mehta explained what he thinks went wrong for Bleed Esports and his former teammate Jaccob ‘yay’ Whiteaker in their opening VCT Pacific Kickoff matches.
yay has not gotten off to a good start in VCT Pacific as his team, Bleed Esports, lost its two opening matches. As each league is starting the 2024 VCT season with a Kickoff tournament, losing those two matches has eliminated Bleed from competition until after VCT Masters Madrid.
The next time yay and Bleed will get a chance to face off against other top teams on stage will be in April. The team might just need this extra downtime to improve their tactics and individual skill, however, as the squad looked underwhelming in its two matches.
yay revealed after the match that he is to blame for the losses and that he had vision problems which hampered his play in the match against Global Esports.
FNS, who used to play with yay on OpTic Gaming, talked about what he thinks Bleed is doing wrong specifically around using yay in a stream on Twitch.
FNS explains what yay is best at and how Bleed used him
FNS is currently on hiatus from professional Valorant, and is streaming instead. The famed IGL was asked about yay’s recent performance with Bleed, and he spoke about how he thinks Bleed is underutilizing the star’s specific skillset.
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“I strongly believe that when somebody is as skilled as yay is, you need to put him on his most comfortable characters and that’s how they are going to get the best out of that person,” FNS said.
The former NRG IGL said yay is most comfortable on Jett, Chamber, and Killjoy. That’s how FNS and the OpTic coaching staff famously utilized the player during their trophy-winning 2022 run. In his matches with Bleed so far, yay only played Jett once and has also piloted Neon, Skye, and Viper.
FNS stipulated that he has no direct insight into Bleed’s coaching decisions, and doesn’t want to bash them too hard as their ideas for how to use yay could be different than his. However, he explained that when yay was on OpTic, they would cater to his best Agents and make sure they played maps featuring Jett or Chamber.
yay was reportedly willing to play supportive roles for teams if it meant he got a VCT roster spot in 2024. The star player hasn’t played many matches outside of his main Duelist Agent before signing with Bleed, so it’s possible the player could improve as the year goes on.