Hazed Joins NRG’s Valorant Roster

After a year and a half with TSM, James “hazed” Cobb has joined NRG to continue his Valorant career. The news surfaced on Wednesday, November 10, when TSM announced the departure of the 32-year-old Valorant esports pro.

Former Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player, turned Valorant esports pro, hazed, has officially parted ways with TSM on Wednesday. It marks the end of a one-and-a-half-year-long stint with the organization, which hazed joined in May 2020.

TSM was hazed’s second stop of his Valorant esports career, which began in April 2020, when the 32-year-old joined mouseSpaz. The mouseSpaz team featured five former CS:GO players, who chose the name for the stack as a reference to a CS organization its core was a part of early into their careers.

MouseSpaz featured Taylor “drone” Johnson, Yassine “Subroza” Taoufik, Matthew “Wardell” Yu, Stephen “reltuC” Cutler, and hazed. And while neither player had any previous experience competing in Valorant, mouseSPaz started making waves early on.

They competed mostly in second-tier tournaments. Still, the team did enough to get spotted by TSM, who decided to sign the whole roster in May 2020.

As a member of TSM, hazed has achieved plenty, including a title from FaZe Clan Invitational. Hazed also finished runner-up in First Strike North America at the end of 2020.

2021 was relatively disappointing for TSM, who failed to qualify for any of the Majors. On the bright side, TSM won VCT 2021: North America Stage 3 Challengers 2 in August.

Having failed to establish themselves as one of the top contenders, TSM opted to make changes. Those began in September, with the benching of Sean “bang” Bezerra, followed by the departure of coach Chet “Chet” Singh, who left for Team Envy in October.

TSM’s latest roster change happened on Wednesday when the team cut ties with hazed, who is joining NRG. Hazed was one of the three remaining members of TSM’s inaugural roster, besides Wardell and Subroza, who are still with the team.

Hazed, the now-former TSM captain, left to join NRG as a replacement for Matthew “Wedid” Suchan. Wedid was cut from the team at the end of October as NRG looked to rebuild their squad.

Like TSM, NRG struggled to achieve much over the 2021 season, yet their success was far more limited. While TSM won one VCT tournament, NRG did not, although they came close during Stage 2 Challengers 2, where they placed third.

Besides that, NRG’s run through the season was largely disappointing, earning them a rank of no.12 in the region. Therefore it makes sense that the North American esports organization is looking to make changes.

The addition of hazed marks the first roster change since June, when NRG acquired Wedid from XSET. Besides Wedid and hazed, NRG hasn’t signed a single player over the entire year, although, in May, the team added Josh “JoshRT” Lee as their new head coach.

NRG currently field hazed, Ian “tex” Botsch, Bradley “ANDROID” Fodor, Daniel “eeiu” Vucenovic, and Sam “s0m” Oh. It remains to be seen what position hazed will take over at his new team, but he will likely be appointed the role of an in-game leader.

NRG have been without an IGL since the departure of Damian “daps” Steele in June. The 28-year-old Canadian retired from the Valorant esports scene and returned to CS:GO as a head coach of Evil Geniuses.

With a new-look roster and no official matches on the calendar, NRG have plenty of time to get ready for the next season. Riot Games has yet to announce the start of the 2022 season, but if we go by the dates of the 2021 season, we can expect the first tournaments to take place sometime in February.