TSM has made a major swap to its beginning VALORANT roster in the present day, bringing on a former Sentinels participant with initiator/duelist expertise in Eric “Kanpeki” Xu to interchange the departing James “Hazed” Cobb.
Kanpeki will step into the beginning roster for TSM simply hours earlier than the staff’s week three matchup within the NA VALORANT Challengers League, with the staff at the moment sitting at 1-1.
Within the official goodbye posted to the TSM channel, Hazed mentioned “it was in one of the best curiosity of everybody to take a step again,” and supplied extra context on the choice for him and the staff to half methods. “In-game, we simply didn’t vibe that properly, and I simply felt just like the odd man out,” Hazed mentioned, including that he was the one to message coach Jake “Daeda” Hale that he felt it was finest to maneuver on.
This was Hazed’s second stint with TSM VALORANT after becoming a member of the staff again in Might 2020 with the remainder of the mouseSpaz roster that included the likes of Matthew “Wardell” Yu and Yassine “Subroza” Taoufik. Hazed left the staff on the finish of 2021 to hitch NRG for the 2022 NA VCT marketing campaign and rejoined TSM with a wholly new roster at the beginning of 2023 after the group’s failed bid to accumulate a franchise partnership with Riot.
Taking Hazed’s place is Kanpeki, who made the massive leap from tier two to the beginning roster of Sentinels in the midst of the 2022 NA VCT season final yr. However with the brand new addition and the function shifts that occurred, Sentinels struggled to maintain up with the caliber of groups after reaching Challengers Two and went 0-5 in teams whereas solely profitable a single map. Kanpeki was faraway from the roster a couple of months later previous to the NA LCQ.
Kanpeki, who’s been enjoying largely initiator and duelist in latest months, will make his TSM debut in opposition to The Guard in the present day at 5pm CT.
