TSM has made a significant swap to its starting VALORANT roster today, bringing on a former Sentinels player with initiator/duelist experience in Eric “Kanpeki” Xu to replace the departing James “Hazed” Cobb.
Kanpeki will step into the starting roster for TSM just hours before the team’s week three matchup in the NA VALORANT Challengers League, with the team currently sitting at 1-1.
In the official goodbye posted to the TSM channel, Hazed said “it was in the best interest of everyone to take a step back,” and provided additional context on the decision for him and the team to part ways. “In-game, we just didn’t vibe that well, and I just felt like the odd man out,” Hazed said, adding that he was the one to message coach Jake “Daeda” Hale that he felt it was best to move on.
This was Hazed’s second stint with TSM VALORANT after joining the team back in May 2020 with the rest of the mouseSpaz roster that included the likes of Matthew “Wardell” Yu and Yassine “Subroza” Taoufik. Hazed left the team at the end of 2021 to join NRG for the 2022 NA VCT campaign and rejoined TSM with an entirely new roster at the start of 2023 after the organization’s failed bid to acquire a franchise partnership with Riot.
Taking Hazed’s place is Kanpeki, who made the huge jump from tier two to the starting roster of Sentinels in the middle of the 2022 NA VCT season last year. But with the new addition and the role shifts that occurred, Sentinels struggled to keep up with the caliber of teams after reaching Challengers Two and went 0-5 in groups while only winning a single map. Kanpeki was removed from the roster a few months later prior to the NA LCQ.
Kanpeki, who’s been playing mostly initiator and duelist in recent months, will make his TSM debut against The Guard today at 5pm CT.
