Just hours before the final North American spot at VCT Masters Three Berlin was claimed by Team Envy last week, a sizable shift occurred in the NA VALORANT scene. Cloud9 acquired Version1 in-game leader and NA CS:GO veteran Anthony “vanity” Malaspina to lead its C9 Blue roster.
As Version1 watched the player who led the team to Reykjavík change his banner and reunite with his former Chaos E.C. teammates, the org also had to sit and watch a player it had planned on making an offer for in Jaccob “yay” Whiteaker find success in his debut with a different team. But despite missing out on yay, V1 COO Brett Diamond said the organization is showing a willingness to spend to get a high-caliber player.
“We wanted to get into the bidding for yay, but by the time we reached out to Andbox, it was pretty much a done deal that he was going to go to Envy,” Diamond told Dot Esports. “We were probably just a day behind that cycle, but we were ready to put the resources necessary together to get a player of that caliber.”
While the idea of adding a Jett main in yay to a V1 team that already has a prominent Jett player in Erik “penny” Penny may raise some questions tactically, it does show that V1 as an organization is, as Diamond put it, “not in any way shy about using resources to bring in the best available players.”
Diamond said the model for V1 is winning and competing, not “transferring talent to generate revenue.” That being said, while he was unable to disclose exact buyout figures, Diamond said V1’s intention was to end up in a position with the resources to replace vanity with “at least equal talent.”
V1’s goal post-Reykjavík was to continue to build the roster that had found so much success during VCT Stage Two. And while vanity’s decision to leave and reunite with Nathan “leaf” Orf and Erick “Xeppaa” Bach stung, the organization said it didn’t catch the team completely off guard. Diamond said from the moment Chaos E.C. disbanded its CS:GO roster through vanity’s acquisition by V1, there was a strong likelihood that they’d all eventually reunite in VALORANT. Diamond said they even inquired with C9 about bringing Xeppaa and leaf to V1, but that conversation never progressed past exploratory talks.
As for the V1 VALORANT roster’s near-term future, coach Ian “immi” Harding relayed on Twitter that Jordan “Zellsis” Montemurro would take on more leadership duties after initially splitting those with vanity. Diamond said immi and V1 management already “have a short-list” of names they are considering to fill in the roster. But he reiterated that the organization is “not rushing to sign a big name,” instead focusing on fit ahead of the VCT NA Last Chance Qualifier.
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