OpTic Gaming’s Valorant roster and CEO H3CZ has finally opened up on the organization not being offered a spot in the VCT Americas League.
After placing in at least the top three at all international events and even claiming VCT Masters title in 2022, the Valorant world was shocked to learn that OpTic wasn’t selected to join Riot’s partnership leagues.
While they stated that they “respect and celebrate past competitive performance”, those were not key factors in Riot’s decision of which teams would ultimately make the partnership.
Now, after well over a month’s silence on the topic, co-owner and CEO Hector ‘H3CZ’ Rodriguez along with the Valorant roster has finally opened up.
H3CZ opens up on OpTic missing VCT franchising
In a November 18 documentary of OpTic’s journey in Valorant and run at Champions, the video ended with a rather emotional farewell to the roster, along with a message to fans on not making it into the league.
“This is tough to talk about because as an organization we haven’t made any statements about not making it into the league,” said OpTic’s co-owner and CEO H3CZ. “So, it hurts for sure right? Because we’re an organization that is storied, we are an organization that’s been here for a long time.”
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“We have one of the most passionate if not the most passionate fan base out there. More importantly, we have a fan base that is able to migrate from esport to esport supporting the logo just because it’s their logo.”
OpTic’s IGL Pujan ‘FNS’ Mehta added his thoughts, revealing the roster had no doubt that they’d make it into the league, especially considering their dominant run this year.
“We never had one doubt in our mind that we were going to get a spot. We obviously thought we were going to get it,” he said. We’re like yo, we have dominated this year more than any other team, and we deserve a spot. And you know, I’m sure most people would agree with that.”
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“I literally don’t think that a single player on our team has any regrets and I can speak for myself right now and say I have no regrets. We put everything that we had out there for the fans,” said FNS.
There’s absolutely no animosity between the roster, and most of the North American stars have been forced to go their separate ways with Jaccob ‘yay’ Whiteaker heading to Cloud9, Jimmy ‘Marved’ Nguyen taking a break from competition and FNS, Austin ‘crashies’ Roberts, Victor ‘Victor’ Wong as well as their coach Chet ‘Chet’ Singh sticking together under NRG.