The next big offseason VALORANT tournament, named the Red Bull Home Ground #4, is in Tokyo, Japan. Plenty of popular teams are competing, but one of the entered Japanese teams has been dealt a blow, losing one of their local players weeks before the event has began.
FENNEL has suspended Yuto “Xdll” Mizomori for two months due to smurfing and boosting, playing at lower ranks on new or other players’ accounts to raise their rank. The official FENNEL account tweeted about the suspension in Japanese.
Xdll will miss a chance to play against some of the best teams in front of a local crowd due to this suspension, and FENNEL has been letting looking for a substitute.
The punishment for smurfing or boosting is something orgs and regions treat differently. Two months is relatively severe, but for the offseason, it doesn’t affect too much for the team outside of off-season events like the Red Bull Home Ground.
It still means a player is missing an opportunity at an international tournament in front of a local crowd for an offense many people look at differently. Regular ranked VALORANT players are very familiar with smurfs—players who are clearly too good for their rank—but smurfing as a pro player is heavily frowned upon, especially if it was paid for. That puts it in the realm of cheating for coin, where smurfing is a loose form of cheating by definition.
Now, it’s likely lots of VALORANT players have smurfed in the past, whether the general public knows or not. Generally, it is more frowned upon in Pacific orgs and teams across multiple esports, which makes the length of this suspension understandable.
FENNEL will have to find a new player to replace Xdll on the roster.
The event does have a prize pool that has yet to be announced, so while in the offseason, it isn’t just showmatches for some of the best VALORANT teams in the world; players have genuine chances to show what their roster can do ahead of the VCT 2024 season. FENNEL earned its spot in the tournament via a Japanese qualifier.
They’ll have to make do, whether it’s by finding a short-term or long-term solution, and then make that replacement fit in potential matchups against travelling heavyweights like ZETA DIVISION, 100 Thieves, and DRX. This puts FENNEL in a similar boat to some other teams competing in Tokyo as a team that doesn’t have a complete roster. But for a team that earned its spot in the tournament, its a blow to already have to make unexpected changes.
