NRG have reportedly made a huge mid-season roster change by removing a very key
and important member of the roster and placing him on bench while bringing in some
familiar faces.
It is the reigning VALORANT world champion and duelist superstar Max “Demon1”
Mazanov who reports claim has been yanked off NRG’s starting roster while Pujan
“FNS” Mehta and Sam “s0m” Oh are also set to return.
The reports indicated that Demon1 will drop into the substitute role and will no longer
compete on the organization’s main roster. FNS and s0m are both reported returning
after they exited NRG after the 2023 campaign.
However, with their return to the organization, they will move straight into the starting
lineup. Meanwhile, with Demon1’s benching will start a transition into a new NRG.
Even though it could be deliberated that Demon1 and NRG underperformed in the first
half of the 2024, it wasn’t bad enough to anticipate that Demon1 and NRG will separate,
making Demon1’s demotion surprising.
The team failed to qualify for the Masters Madrid and they have generally struggled with
Ethan in the in-game leader role, and they finished bottom of their group in stage one to
miss Masters Shanghai.
Meanwhile, NRG controller player Jimmy “Marved” Nguyen was reportedly getting
moved to the bench as well and with that happening, the NRG roster would now have
s0m on controller, while FNS will return to the in-game leader role. Ethan will be back in
his flex role, and Victor will be the primary duelist.
These moves are expected to have the VCT space shaken up while also change the
directions and projections of NRG’s season even though neither NRG nor any of the
players have directly confirmed the reported changes. However, we will all know by the
time the team returns to the VCT Americas stage for the stage two on June 22.
Daniel Ademiju Idowu
