T1 and Cloud9 announced a trade right after Cloud9’s first Valorant Champions Tour Stage 2 Challengers match on May 15. Shortly after the news, the CEOs of both organizations clarified the moves to a shocked community.
T1 Valorant received Son ‘xeta’ Seon-ho and Yoon ‘Autumn’ Eu-teum, a player and coach respectively, while Cloud9 got former Counter-Strike player Rahul ‘curry’ Nemani in the trade. The move happened during VCT competition because Cloud9 could not get curry before the roster lock, according to Dot Esports.
When the move was announced, many speculated about why the trade came about and what it could mean in terms of Valorant changing to a closed, possibly franchised, system for 2023.
One of the biggest questions was whether T1 would stay in North America as the org originated in South Korea and still has deep ties to the region.
T1 playing 5D chess
Now they can either franchise in NA or if they're not picked for whatever reason go franchise in Korea
— The Esports Writer (@FionnOnFire) May 16, 2022
T1’s CEO Joe Marsh later clarified that the team is staying in North America on Twitter and other social platforms.
“After meeting with [Joshua ‘steel’ Nissan] and our GM we felt that the success we had with a mixed nationality roster when [Ha ‘Sayaplayer’ Jung-woo] was with us is [the] best path forward with us since we have scouts in both US and Korea and gives us a larger pool to pull from,” Marsh said on Juked.
T1 was one of the first organizations to jump into Valorant in 2020.T1 has teams in multiple esports across South Korea and North America with many content creators from across the world as well.C9 explains trading Xeta and Autumn from Valorant roster
On Cloud9’s side, CEO Jack Etienne commented on the announcement on the org’s subreddit. He clarified that this was a request on the staff side and there was no ill will on either side.
“Zeta and Autumn have been wonderful to work with but in the end they were ready for a new challenge and I’ve always supported these requests by players and coaches when possible,” Etienne said. “The entire team and myself wish them well.”
Every person involved in the trade also chimed in on the news, with curry releasing a short Twitlonger thanking the players and staff on T1 for his time there.
Before this trade, T1 let go of their Valroant head coach, David Denis. Cloud9 will continue to play in VCT Stage 2 Challengers with its new addition while T1 only have third-party tournaments to compete in for the time being as they failed to make the VCT main event.
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