Yay Responds To Community Backlash On BLEED’s Performance

One of the most celebrated Valorant players, Jaccob “yay” Whiteaker, made his VCT Pacific debut with his new squad, BLEED Esports. Unfortunately, the team lost two series in a row, resulting in an early exit from the Kickoff tournament.

In BLEED’s debut match against T1, yay and the squad suffered a 0-2 loss. In the first map, yay played Neon on Breeze and Skye on Lotus. In the elimination match against Global Esports, yay played Viper twice and Jett once. 

Though yay is known for being a duelist player, Singaporean player Derrick “Deryeon” Yee played the team’s main duelist role while yay was put on support agents.

Community’s Interpretation Of BLEED’s Problem

Simply put, the community was outraged that BLEED imported yay from North America only to put him in support roles. Fans were especially angered that Deryeon, a player yet to prove himself, was playing yay’s role instead. 

putting somebody from nowhere to play duelist over yay is crazy https://t.co/2PQzkioa4y

— Melancholy (@chetkungzdemon) February 19, 2024

World champion in-game leader and yay’s old teammate, Pujan “FNS” Mehta, also made comments on BLEED’s lacklustre performance at VCT Kickoff during a live stream:

“I strongly believe that when somebody is as skilled as yay is, you need to put him on his most comfortable <agents>. That’s how you’re going to get the best out of that person. If I have yay on my team, he’s either my Jett or my Chamber.”

To recall, the only map BLEED won in the VCT Pacific Kickoff was on Icebox against Global Esports, where yay had his hands on Jett. In the remaining four losses, yay was put on Skye, Viper, and Neon. 

A lot of blame was headed toward the direction of BLEED’s coach, Nikola “LEGIJA” Ninić, an ex-professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player. It makes sense that the coach calls the shots on which players would play which agents. 

legija has blood on his hands, making yay play skye and viper…

— B7 Navcho (@Navch0) February 19, 2024

American professional player Justin “Trick” Sears shared his thoughts on BLEED’s approach. He mentioned yay is a self-centered player and leans towards map control. Putting yay on Jett won’t fix the issue, as Trick believes BLEED does not have the players that can adapt to that playstyle, resulting in a lack of synergy.

In my opinion, yay was never a true duelist player, his version of duelist is self centered and leans towards map control & dry fights with T side awping rather than an entry specialist, and I don’t think just tossing him on jett and hoping to win fixes anything. If you have him…

— Trick (@TrickAIM) February 20, 2024

Yay’s Twitter Response

On Twitter, yay released a statement regarding the situation. 

man you guys are brutal

not sure what happened that last series. ive never had my vision start becoming blurry during a game. there were people on my screen sometimes and I didnt even react. and the worst part is I have no idea what caused it

I know some of you are mad but…

— yay (@yay) February 20, 2024

The star player mentioned his vision was becoming blurry, making him unable to react appropriately and shoot back. Weirdly enough, yay doesn’t know what the cause of it was. 

Yay proceeds to redirect all the blame and backlash to himself, defending his teammates and coaches on BLEED.