Following the benching of Marved and Demon1, the NRG Valorant roster is looking for two players to fill the vacant positions. Strong rumors have been circulating that s0m and FNS, who previously played for the organization, will represent the NRG jersey once again.
Can s0m and FNS patch NRG’s bleeding?
Two good friends, s0m and FNS, left the NRG organization after disappointing results in the 2023 season. The pair pursued content creation, mainly focusing on live streaming. Their departure from the team made way for Marved and Demon1, two celebrated players in the North American region.
At first glance, the new NRG roster looked like it would be unstoppable on paper. However, we quickly understood why superteams have never worked in esports. The squad missed qualifications for international Valorant events, VCT Masters Madrid and Shanghai.
The team’s lackluster performance at VCT Americas Stage 1 was the final nail in the coffin. NRG exited the tournament in last place with a 3-3 record in the Group Stage. As a result, NRG released Marved and Demon1, who had only been on the team for around five months.
It was apparent that the NRG roster was a team of five superstars without a proper leader. This is why FNS is a likely candidate to return to the team. He is an incredibly experienced in-game leader who always makes his Chess pieces work.
Meanwhile, s0m has always been considered one of North America’s most extraordinary talents, even dating back to his days competing in Counter-Strike. Even though he has spent most of the past few months streaming, s0m has been grinding the ranked leaderboards and staying in shape.
Community Reactions
The roster moves NRG have made waves around the Valorant community and stirred many discussions. Let’s examine the opinions of influential members of the Valorant scene.
Shanks, a former professional Valorant player who is now under the Evil Geniuses organization as a streamer, was disappointed in NRG’s move to put Demon1 on the bench instead of allowing him to explore opportunities:
“NRG is so shameless. They’re literally keeping Demon1 as a sixth man, so he can’t go to any other team and dominate them if we had Demon1 on Evil Geniuses right now, and we have Potter to reactivate Demon1. It would literally be like a dream come true.”
The Viet streamer thinks NRG made an unpleasant move, essentially placing Demon1 in contract jail so he couldn’t join another team.
Former TSM player Subroza joked that the pair is better off streaming than joining the NRG roster:
“That’s not true, that’s a lie. FNS and s0m are just in the Bahamas right now for another vacation. They’ve made $10 million with their watch parties, and now they’re just in the Bahamas chilling.”
Tarik, the most popular Valorant streamer, also shared his thoughts on the situation. He also shed some light on NRG making Demon1 play on Raze, which many fans were heated about:
“If s0m and FNS come back and they actually start playing well, does that mean Marved and Demon1 were the problem, or does that mean s0m and FNS were just the answer?
I don’t think you can blame them for putting Demon1 on Raze; he’s just trying to make the Duelist play the Duelist role on all maps, but it just didn’t work out.”
We were used to seeing Demon1 perform on Jett while he was playing under the Evil Geniuses organization. His teammate, jawgemo, would be playing Raze if the team needed the agent on specific maps.
When jawgemo is on Duelist, Demon1 plays Controller agents such as Astra and Brimstone. However, we have never seen Demon1 play smokes on NRG.
One of the players in question, FNS, started baiting his audience:
“I don’t know if I’ll be watching any more VCT Masters Shanghai games, because we have stuff going on, you know what I’m saying?”
Nothing is set in stone. S0m and FNS could very well be trolling the entire community, and we might not even see them step foot into the professional scene again anytime soon. Only time will tell.
Header: s0m Instagram