G2 Esports’ current venture in North American VALORANT is over for the time being, with the organization announcing a mass exodus of players today following a disappointing end to their 2023 Challengers season.
The organization said “goodbye” to virtually the entire starting roster of dapr, wippie, penny, and OXY, as well as both coaches Immi and Dani. Former Sentinels shotcaller ShahZaM is sticking around with the organization, moving to a content creator role for the time being. But one fan claims ShahZaM has said on stream he “100 percent” still wants to compete.
As alluded to in the org’s farewell video, the 2023 VALORANT season for G2 ended “the same way it started,” near death. Largely considered a heavy favorite among NA Challengers teams with a core of former Sentinels and Version1 players, and with the young OXY playing well early, G2 finished third in the first split of NA Challengers, then reached the grand finals of the Mid-Season Faceoff.
But in an almost similar vein to another highly regarded team like Disguised, everything completely fell apart in the second split. G2 went 0-5 in their group in the second split, then went 0-2 in the playoffs and were quickly dispatched and done for the year. Across those seven series, the team only picked up five total maps, including just one in the playoffs. For the former Sentinels and Version1 players, it was a nightmarish repeat of the shocking falloff in performance they each experienced in years prior.
Still, the VALORANT journey isn’t over for the former G2 players. The trio of ShahZaM, wippie, and OXY were still three of the more highly rated players across the entire Challengers season, even considering the poor second-half performance of the team. All five players are names that will certainly receive interest from other Challengers teams or Challengers hopefuls, and perhaps even some partnered teams.
Whether or not G2 continues to compete in NA remains to be seen. While there’s certainly no lack of available talent, the region is super competitive and discussion about sustainability in VALORANT/esports has been at an all-time high. G2 still fields the reigning world champions Game Changers roster, G2 Gozen.
