It still seems odd that one of VALORANT’s biggest stars won’t be on a tier-one team when the 2023 VCT season begins. Yet with chances to sign with a tier-one club seemingly gone for the year, one of the top VALORANT players might be moving to a Challengers team that is already worth watching.
Lost in the never-ending feed of April Fools’ Day jokes was the “announcement” by streaming star Disguised Toast that former C9 player and top free agent Jaccob “yay” Whiteaker was joining the Disguised roster competing in the NA VALORANT Challengers League.
Given that the tweet from Disguised says yay would be playing by himself because the entire roster had to be dropped to afford him, this was interpreted by almost everyone who saw it to be a joke. But Disguised Toast himself appeared on yesterday’s broadcast for VCT Americas, sporting a LOUD jersey on Tarik’s co-stream, and teasing that maybe, just maybe, it’s not a joke.
During a halftime interview segment, Disguised Toast was asked about the April Fools’ Day tweet, which he ominously replied to by saying “we made a tweet on April Fools’ [Day], and that’s all I’m gonna say.” But the really interesting clip comes from Tarik’s co-stream, where Toast showed Tarik a list of players he’s supposedly trialing for the upcoming Challengers split, each one “spicier” than the last.
Tarik’s question about a potential investor is what really set off alarm bells for VALORANT fans. Both clips picked up a ton of attention on the competitive VALORANT subreddit, creating threads filled with commenters who are convinced yay is heading to Disguised. But it’s important to note that even if Toast was showing Tarik the actual list of players trialing, a final decision on the roster for the second split has not been made.
Of course, this could all be a big joke for content, but it’s not inconceivable. Most VCT Americas teams can’t bring on any new players unless it’s as an emergency sub, so if yay wants to play this year, it would have to be NA Challengers. On Disguised, Yay would be able to stay in competitive form, get adapted to the meta, and improve his stock further while playing on a team that’s already one of the most watched in NA Challengers.