Both Corey and ZachaREEE have stepped away from the Overwatch League halfway through a season, following in the footsteps of Jay ‘Sinatraa’ Won in what turned into a bit of an exodus from players that have left the team-based shooter to shift to a different team-based shooter, Valorant.
FaZe Clan announced yesterday that they have signed two of the former Overwatch League professionals, Corey and Zach, onto their Valorant team.
While some may be quick to disparage the players that come from Overwatch, it’s worth noting that their reflexes and aim are among the upper tier of players regardless of what title they may be currently embedded in.
Corey was easily among the best hitscan players within the Overwatch League, and his skill ceiling alone brought the Washington Justice back into contention after a particularly disastrous opening.
Zach Lombardo is a bit more difficult to pin down; often he was seen playing Pharah; a character that launches projectiles instead of hitscan, and his struggles with actually hitting the enemy team have been seen often by fans. His hitscan, however, is among the better of Overwatch League players.
If you were to stack the three players from the Overwatch League against each other in Valorant, it would admittedly be difficult to discern precisely who would come out on top. We won’t have to wait too long, however, as Riot should be revealing their grandiose plans for Valorant’s esport league within the next twelve months.
Alongside the two former professional Overwatch League players is Rory ‘dephh’ Jackson who used to play with CompLexity Gaming, Harrison ‘psalm’ Chang who retired from Heroes of the Storm to become a professional Fortnite player, and Johnny ‘Marved’ Nguyen from CS: GO team Blood, Sweat, and Tears.
As it stands, that is currently the entirety of the FaZe Clan roster for Valorant.
The roster will be making their debut this weekend in the T1 x Nerd Street Gamers Showdown tournament in Valorant.
As part of the Ignition Series, it takes sixteen teams and breaks them into four separate groups; much like the Twitch Rivals series that saw some mildly amusing results as ‘entertainment-centric’ streamers were repeatedly slapped by legendary names.
With a $50,000 prize pool, and 1st place taking home half of that as their cut, FaZe Clan is likely chomping at the bit to gain some early momentum out of the gate. Precisely how well they will fare, however, against massive titans of the game such as T1, will be seen rather soon.