Nobody would have expected that yay, the best VALORANT player on OpTic Gaming in 2022 and one of the best in the entire world, would be teamless less than one month away from the start of the Americas League, but this is the exact situation at the moment.
Yay has become the only former OpTic player left in free agency after Sentinels picked up his former teammate Jimmy “Marved” Nguyen today, according to a report by Dot Esports’ George Geddes. Marved is expected to fill the sixth-man role on Sentinels following the arrest of Hunter “SicK” Mims on March 4. Marved can use this period to figure out if he wants to transition to content creation or really commit to playing in the franchised league.
Related: Sentinels aims to bail SicK out of jail following arrest
If yay wants to keep living and competing in the U.S., it might be hard for him to find a spot on a franchised team right now because of the timing. Apart from Cloud9, who cut yay and in-game leader Anthony “vanity” Malaspina after their second-round knockout at VCT LOCK//IN São Paulo in February, none of the other four English-speaking teams in the Americas League—Sentinels, NRG, 100 Thieves, and Evil Geniuses—have announced the intention of making changes to their active VALORANT lineups.
Besides, it’s one thing to build a roster around yay when you’re still figuring out the pieces and have the opportunity to save money on other players to spend it on a star of his caliber. Now that the rosters are settled, yay could be left hanging in free agency for some months if he wishes to be paid as much as he was likely getting on C9. Yay signed that contract in October 2022 when he was without a doubt the best VALORANT pro in the world following his individual year and accomplishments with OpTic, which included the title at VCT Masters One Reykjavík.
In case yay doesn’t find a spot on another franchised team, it’s likely he’ll temporarily switch to streaming and use the time to take a break from the life of a professional player. All the franchised leagues—Americas, EMEA, and Pacific—will kick off between the end of March and the beginning of April, and will all end on May 28.
