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FaZe Clan officially revealed its Valorant roster for the 2022 season on Wednesday, January 26. The announcement comes ahead of the VCT North America Stage One Challengers Open Qualifier, where FaZe will debut its new-look lineup.
FaZe Rebuilds Valorant Roster
FaZe Clan revealed its new Valorant roster, featuring four new players and Andrej “babybay” Francisty as the only carryover from the 2021 season. Joining the 26-year-old are Quan “dicey” Tran, Xavier “flyuh” Carlson, Christopher “LarryBanks” Doyi, and Andrew “ShoT_UP” Orlowski as the newest faces on the team.
The quarter replaced Corey “corey” Nigra, Zachary “ZachaREEE” Lombardo, Shane “Rawkus” Flaherty, and Hunter “BabyJ” Schline.
Dicey joins the team from 100 Thieves, who he joined in October 2020, but found himself benched shortly after, in February 2021. Dicey has since been competing in some lesser tournaments, most recently at NSG: Winter Championship – Open 7 with The Guard.
Flyuh arrives at FaZe from a stack Team Seal, who he joined in October 2021, after a short stint with T1 Academy. Alongside flyuh, FaZe also acquired his former teammate, LarryBanks, who was last seen competing with Team Seal.
The 16-year-old, while fairly inexperienced, has shown immense potential over his one-year Valorant esports career and joins FaZe as an upcoming talent.
The final missing piece, ShoT_UP, joins FaZe from Immortals, whom he has played for since October 2020 but has only achieved limited success. ShoT_UP’s most notable achievement with Immortals came in the VCT 2021 NA Stage 1 Challengers 1 and in Challengers 2, in which he finished second and third, respectively.
Ready For The New Season
With a new-look roster, FaZe Clan is ready to make some noise in the scene. FaZe was already one of the top North American Valorant esports teams last year, but they were never on top.
FaZe kicked off the year with a VCT NA Stage 1 Challengers 3 title and in March reached the finals of the Stage 1 Masters. Unfortunately, FaZe went on a dry streak across the next three months, failing to qualify for a single VCT event.
After a couple of roster changes in summer, FaZe were back on the horse. The team qualified for the VCT NA Stage 3 Challengers 2 and placed second behind TSM.
Unfortunately, FaZe could not keep their streak going and crashed out of the Stage 3 Challengers Playoffs in fifth-sixth place. As a result, they did not directly qualify for the VALORANT Champions 2021 and had to fight through the NA Last Chance Qualifiers.
There, FaZe fell at the first hurdle, losing to Rise and Version 1, who eliminated them in seventh-eighth place.
But despite FaZe’s disappointing finish to the 2021 season, the North American esports organization is ready to turn a new leaf heading into VCT 2022. The new-look roster will make its debut at the Stage One Open Qualifiers, slated for later this week.
The first open qualifiers will run between February 11 – March 27 and feature 128 teams, who will compete for one of the four tickets leading into the Stage One Closed Qualifiers. The top four teams from the first and second open qualifiers will join Cloud9, Sentinels, 100 Thieves, and Envy in the closed qualifiers.
Bigger Plans
Alongside the announcement of its new Valorant roster, FaZe are also reportedly signing an academy team. Although yet to be announced, reports suggest FaZe will sign the entire core of Team Seal under its wing.
The deal would see Cade “Cade3k” Warren, and Binh “Yoshii” Warren, and Bones join FaZe Academy players, where they will join forces with Erik “d1msumboi” Almhjell and wubby.
With that, FaZe Clan will follow the trend of other prominent esports organizations such as Cloud9, TSM, and T1, who have all created academy teams.
It’s worth noting that while FaZe will field an academy team, it won’t be allowed to compete in the VCT. That is because rules prohibit organizations from fielding two rosters in the VCT and because Bones is underage and not allowed to compete in the VCT yet.