One of the achieved gamers from the North American VALORANT Sport Changers circuit, Katja “katsumi” Pfahnl, introduced on Oct. 15 that she is going to now not be competing within the scene, as an alternative selecting to deal with qualifying for Challengers in 2024 alongside a at the moment unnamed, mixed-gender roster.
“It’s not one thing I wish to make a giant deal of, however I’m not going to be enjoying in Sport Changers transferring ahead, and I’ve no plans to return presently. I’m going to proceed competing, however I’m altering course away from GC,” katsumi wrote on Twitter. “I’ve all the time seen Sport Changers as a brief step and never an finish purpose. I’ve maintained by means of my total profession that if I ever believed I wasn’t able to changing into a high participant exterior of GC – I might give up competing fully and transfer on to one thing else in my life.”
https://x.com/katsumiFPS/standing/1713610953571369169?s=20
“Over time, I’ve realized that the trail to my objectives as a competitor may not be so simple as transferring instantly from a GC workforce to a challengers / franchised workforce. I’m very appreciative for the previous 2 years I’ve spent competing in Sport Changers. GC has been a really comfy, protected, and secure place for me to discover competing. Nevertheless for me personally, I believe it’s time to start out feeling uncomfortable as a way to really push myself. I don’t know that I really feel notably ‘prepared’ or if that’s even potential, however I’m up for the problem.”
Katsumi rose to prominence within the North American Sport Changers scene throughout her time with the previous Cloud9 White squad, the place she gained seven regional championships, and appeared on LAN for the primary GC World Championship final yr.
After Cloud9 introduced that it was disbanding its Sport Changers roster final December, katsumi and fellow C9 White alumnus Bob Tran moved to XSET Purple, the place she took on the in-game chief position. They took third within the first NA Sport Changers collection of the yr, however didn’t make it out of the decrease bracket of the second. XSET and katsumi didn’t compete in collection three, as many of the different gamers on the workforce left for others in September.
As an alternative of doing extra of the identical, katsumi is as an alternative trying to compete for Challengers 2024 qualification alongside her former Cloud9 White coach Reid “x0tek” Johnson, Jason “JSUNG” Sung (previously of Soniq Esports), Danny Huynh (previously of Gen. G and Ghost Gaming), and PapiCantaloupe in an thrilling new surroundings.
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