FaZe Clan And ZachaREEE Part Ways

Zachary “ZachaREEE” Lombardo was officially let go from FaZe Clan Valorant roster on Tuesday, March 29, after moving to the restricted free agency status in December. But he didn’t need long to find a new home.

ZachaREEE is a former Overwatch League pro player, where he played as a Flex DPS for Dallas Fuel. However, after failing to find much success competing in Overwatch, ZachaREEE made the call to transition to Valorant in July 2020.

Shortly after ZachaREEE announced his intentions to move to Valorant, he got picked up by FaZe Clan, who acquired the 21-year-old as a part of the organization’s inaugural roster.

ZachaREEE joined FaZe on July 24, 2020, when he teamed up with Jason “jasonR” Ruchelski and Corey “corey” Nigra as the first two singings. The three-man squad later paired with Jimmy “Marved” Nguyen.

At the start of August, FaZe parted ways with jasonR and needed just a couple of days to find the final two missing pieces in Andrej “babybay” Francisty and Shane “Rawkus” Flaherty, who rounded up the roster on August 5.

The 21-year-old first announced his departure from FaZe Clan in December when he unveiled he is open to new opportunities and ready to continue competing. ZachaREEE’s benching from the team came during a turbulent period as FaZe looked to rebuild its roster.

Since leaving FaZe, ZachaREEE has been seen competing in some lesser tournaments, including x1 MOB February Banger with We Can squad, before he joined Akrew for the ALORANT team for the BoomTV Proving Grounds event.

There, ZachaREEE and his new crew claimed a top-eight finish, which wasn’t great. However, ZachaREEE has seemingly convinced the team with his individual performances, earning him a contract.

With that, ZachaREEE is now officially a member of Akrew, where he’ll team up with Eric “Kanpeki” Xu, Andrew “Gucc107” Gutnichenko, Austin “Neon” Hedge, and Jake “Paincakes” Hass.

ZachaREEE, who served as a Killjoy, Viper, and Breach player, helped FaZe Clan solidify themselves as one of the top teams in North America. With FaZe, ZachaREEE won the VCT NA Season One Challengers Three and even reached the finals of Masters One grand final, which FaZe lost against Sentinels.

Unfortunately, things went downhill from there, as FaZe could not achieve anything noteworthy over the next months. This led to several roster changes, albeit to no avail.

As a result, FaZe decided to start fresh with a complete roster overhaul. And it started just at the time when ZachaREEE was let go from the team, at the end of last year, ahead of the 2022 season.

Just in November, FaZe parted ways with Hunter “BabyJ” Schline and Rawkus, and in January, lost Marved to Team Envy and corey to TSM. This led to a complete roster overhaul in January, when FaZe signed four new players to join babybay as the only remaining member of the original lineup.

The new lineup consisted of babybay, Quan “dicey” Tran, Xavier “flyuh” Carlson, Christopher “LarryBanks” Doyi, and Andrew “ShoT_UP” Orlowski. And even though the roster has remained intact since, FaZe has made changes elsewhere.

Most notably, FaZe re-signed Rawkus and parted ways with Thomas “Trippy” Schappy, who served as an analyst, head coach, and assistant coach of the team.

FaZe seem to have found some stability now, but rumors suggest more changes are around the corner. As reported, FaZe is looking to sign Kevin “POISED” Ngo and Phat “Supamen” Le to its lineup’.

The new signings have yet to be announced, but it’s expected for the news to pop up in the coming days, before the second stage of NA VCT.