FPX looks for substitute ahead of Valorant Champions

FunPlus Phoenix head coach Erik ‘d00mbr0s’ Sandgren has announced that the VCT Stage 2 Masters Copenhagen winning team is looking for a substitute player ahead of Valorant Champions.

FPX had three substitutes at the ready for Masters Copenhagen and ended up using only one of them for about half of the tournament.

The current best team in the world needed substitutes at the ready for Stage 2 Masters, and potentially now for Valorant Champions, because their squad has three Russian players and a Ukrainian IGL. Due to travel restrictions within the two countries, the team had to miss out on Stage 1 Masters even though they qualified as the No. 1 seed.

d00mbr0s specified in his post that the team is looking for a smokes player preferably, but “if you are good enough, any role works.”

FPX with substitutes

At Valorant Masters, FPX went 2-2 with their stand-in at the tournament, Mathias ‘SEIDER’ Seider. With SEIDER in the mix with the team, FPX’s compositions were slightly switched around to accommodate the Danish player.

FPX also fielded a substitute player, Kamil ‘baddyG’ Graniczka, during the Stage 1 Challengers league and Playoff Stage. The FPX Valorant squad went 5-1 over the course of baddyG’s time with the team as he replaced their IGL for a time due to the conflict in Ukraine and Ardis ‘ardiis’ Svarenieks due to illness.

Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games

FPX battled through the lower bracket to claim the Masters trophy.

The team seems to have a knack for winning matches regardless of who needs to be substituted out of their lineup and who gets slotted in.

With their full roster, however, FPX looks like a different beast in Valorant matches. When Dmitry ‘SUYGETSU’ Ilyushin was introduced back into the lineup at Valorant Masters, FPX did not lose a match and only dropped five maps.

FPX will start their Valorant Champions journey along with the rest of the qualified teams on September 2.