With the changes that have allowed former players of The Guard to join the VALORANT Champions Tour with the spot they earned through Ascension, two big esports orgs are ahead of the pack in the race for their signatures.
G2 Esports and FlyQuest are the most likely to sign former players from The Guard and get their guest franchising slot for VCT 2024. This rumor comes from Lembo, a content creator for Giants Gaming, via Twitter in his native Spanish, mentioning that both orgs are already in discussions with the players.
This makes sense, considering the other leak that has come to fruition recently from NRG coach Chet “Chet” Singh’s stream. He accidentally revealed his messages with former The Guard player Ian “tex” Botsch, where tex mentioned offers from teams like Dignitas and FlyQuest. It seems that it isn’t just tex possibly joining FlyQuest, as part of The Guard’s core could move there as well. The team is aiming to stick together but still have the potential to lose a couple of players to other orgs looking to rebuild.
Related: Riot backtracks on VCT The Guard ruling, squad to remain together in hunt for new org
Both G2 Esports and FlyQuest have their histories with Riot Games and VALORANT. G2 had a good VALORANT squad before franchising came around, with star Europeans like current Giants player Žygimantas “nukkye” Chmieliauskas. When the 2023 format was announced, they were among the teams rumored to join.
After some internal problems, they ended up on the outside looking in, forming a Challengers roster instead. They had hopes to earn Ascension via the same process that The Guard did, but fell short of expectations. Soon after, on July 7, G2 Esports released their VALORANT roster, seemingly departing from the esport. Now that a slot has opened up, they are reconsidering.
As for FlyQuest, they’ve only dipped their toes into the water of the VALORANT esports sphere. Game Changers fans will know they do have a roster in that league, with FlyQuest RED competing in North America, but they just picked it up back on June 1, 2023. They only competed in one tournament, unable to qualify for the North America series.
Where most fans recognize the potential of FlyQuest is their League team, which has had regional success ever since 2017. Their LCS Spring season for 2023 ended with a third-place finish, just losing to Golden Guardians. Considering that they’re not only a long-time partner with Riot Games for League but also a relatively successful one, a new venture into VALORANT fits their profile.
Both are capable of running a top-tier VALORANT organization, but where the players will end up (and whether Riot approves them for 2024), we’ll have to wait and see.
