TenZ Retires From Competitive VALORANT
Cloud 9 has announced that its Valorant and former CSGO prodigy Tyson “TenZ” Ngo has retired from competitive play. Heading forward the nineteen-year-old Canadian has elected to pursue a career in content creation and will remain with Cloud 9 in such a role.
In his farewell announcement, TenZ reminisced about the past season stating:
“For 2020, the year was amazing for me, because it was the year I was able to blow up through competitive play, my Twitch stream, all my socials. Overall competitive play was good, streaming was good, and only towards the end of 2020 was when we had some decline as a team together.”
He further stated that the decision to step down from the team was his own, but left the door open for a possible return as soon as the situation with covid settles down.
“Stepping down from the team is a personal choice of mine, and I’m just really excited about the future and what this game holds in the competitive scene.”, further adding “I’m definitely going to be keeping my eyes on the competitive scene”
He also stated that for the foreseeable future, he will be focusing on his stream.
“As of right now, I’m just going to be doing content creation until covid is up. I’ll re-decide what I want to do when there are LANs.”
A short but impactful career
TenZ first came into the esport limelight after getting acquired by Cloud 9’s CS:GO squad back in July 2019. Although a promising move at first, it didn’t pay much dividends as the player found himself benched after only three months on the roster.
He soon transitioned into a streamer role before switching to Valorant in 2020. On the 12th of April 2020, Cloud 9 revealed TenZ as the first player on its Valorant roster.
Cloud 9’s Valorant roster got off to a good start, emerging as a top-three side in the North American scene. As the 2020 season went on, so did Cloud 9’s form dip as ultimately the squad failed to qualify for the First Strike North America Regional Finals.
With Cloud 9 falling behind in the NA rankings, changes were on the horizon, but few could have guessed that the team’s main superstar would be stepping down from the roster.
What’s next for Cloud 9?
With Josh “shinobi” Abastado’s departure in December and TenZ’s shocking exit, Cloud 9 is down to only three players, and it currently remains unknown who will be replacing the duo in the team’s starting lineup.
The official Valorant season will start in February, leaving the team time to find ample substitutes for both players. With TenZ out of the picture, Cloud 9 has lost both its star player and Valorant poster boy, and replacing could prove to be a daunting task.
Currently, the team is looking miles behind the likes of 100 Thieves, Team SoloMid, and Sentinels, and will have to dig deep if they want to emerge as a top-three NA side.
