The post-Reykjavik European VALORANT roster shuffle has so far been dominated solely by Team Heretics and G2 Esports, two teams looking to climb back to the top of the mountain after stumbling slightly in the VCT.
And now, the two organizations have effectively traded players. Two days after G2 signed Žygimantas “nukkye” Chmieliauskas and Auni “AvovA” Chahade from Heretics, Heretics has acquired former G2 players Ardis “ardiis” Svarenieks and Patryk “paTiTek” Fabrowski.
Heretics announced the additions today, just a day after acquiring Ondřej “MONSTEERR” Petrů from LDN UTD. Prior to that acquisition, the departures of nukke and AvovA left Heretics with only one active starting player, Christian “lowel” Garcia Antoran. The team’s roster is now 80 percent complete, as the org said itself on Twitter, with one active starting spot remain. Heretics still has both Ruben “RUBINO” Villarroel Brødreskift and Dustyn “niesoW” Durnas on the inactive list.
Heretics rocketed into contention with a victory at First Strike and carried that momentum through the beginning of 2021 and into the start of VCT play. In Stage One, they won Challengers Two and reached the grand finals of Masters One, falling in five maps to ACEND. But Heretics fell way below expectations in Stage Two, losing to Opportunists (pre-BDS acquisition) in a reverse sweep in Challengers One, then fittingly losing to G2 in the Challengers Two qualifiers.
Despite that win, G2 haven’t fared much better. Throughout 2020, G2 were considered one of the world’s best teams in the early stages of competitive VALORANT, coasting through the competition prior to First Strike. That same dominance didn’t resurface for VCT, however. They lost all three play-in matches at Stage One Challenger events, then failed to make the EMEA Challengers Finals at the end of Stage Two. Aside from the Heretics additions, G2 also added Jose Luis “koldamenta” Aranguren Herrero from ACEND post-Reykjavik, with ACEND signing former G2 player Aleksander “zeek” Zygmunt in a similar player swap to G2-Heretics.
With all three teams swapping players, G2, Heretics, and ACEND will have aspirations of attaining better results in the third and final stage of the 2021 VCT campaign. With four EMEA slots at Masters Three Berlin, there’s more on the line for each of the teams and they’ll have to make it if they have any hopes of attending Champions at the end of the year.
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