With about a month until the NA VALORANT Challengers League qualifiers get underway, TSM today solidified its starting lineup by bringing back James “hazed” Cobb and adding Nicholas “NaturE” Garrison, confirming an earlier claim by Dot Esports.
The two players will join most of the starting roster core retained from TSM’s 2022 VCT campaign: Johann “seven” Hernandez, Corey Nigra, and Anthony “gMd” Guimond. Not included in the team’s starting group is Yassine “Subroza” Taoufik, the long-standing foundation of the roster who (prior to hazed’s return) was the last standing original member of the mouseSpaz group signed in 2020.
After missing out on partnership during this past offseason, TSM was one of the first prominent NA organizations to reaffirm its commitment to NA VALORANT. “TSM has been a partner with Riot since 2013, and is one of the few profitable esports orgs, so it doesn’t make sense for us to get up and leave the scene tomorrow,” TSM’s VP of esports Dominic Kallas said in September.
The organization will look to improve its standing the hard way through the NA Challengers and Ascension ecosystem. Despite a good start to 2020 that ended with a grand finals run at First Strike, TSM found little to no success over the next two VCT years, with only a few successful runs through regional qualifiers, falling well short of any international appearances. The team saw a large amount of talent enter and leave, even letting a rising star like Sean “bang” Bezerra slip through its fingers and into the waiting hands of 100 Thieves.
Hazed returns to the team after a strong year with NRG in which the team finished out as a top-six squad in North America. NaturE joins the team after previous stints with Immortals and Gen.G.
It’s unclear yet whether or not TSM will receive a direct invite to NA Challengers or have to compete through open qualifiers, but regardless, the path to Ascension is not easy with teams like G2, M80, and The Guard putting up strong rosters that will contend for the one VCT Americas promotion slot.