Equinox drops their VALORANT roster

Yesterday, Equinox wordlessly dropped their VALORANT roster with no indication that they intend on rebuilding

The tier 3 organization dropped their entire roster, leaving Ian “tex” Botsch, David “DXN” Nguyen, Kevin “mina” Nguyen, Danny “cutefatboy” Nguyen, and Jake “Paincakes” Hass orgless. Equinox has been heavily criticized by fellow pro players and the VALORANT community at large for neglecting to provide a reason or even acknowledge their decision.

Before signing with Equinox, 4 out of the 5 players competed together during the beta and early phases of the esports scene under the China Nguyen banner. After being picked up in October and adding tex, Equinox was able to keep pace with the top teams in VALORANT as more talent flooded into the community. Equinox was never able to find a first-place finish but showed promise by ending fourth in both the NSG x Complexity Invitational the Nerd Street Gamers Winter Championship. Equinox has since been incredibly underwhelming in the VCT and failed to make it out of any of the qualifiers.

In lieu of an actual announcement, the news broke as tex, mina, and DXN all released LFT tweets while cutefatboy and Paincakes have removed their affiliations with Equinox from their socials.

With more tier 1 organizations joining and CLG, FlyQuest, and Golden Guardians also rumored to make an appearance in VALORANT, it will only get harder for tier 2 and 3 teams like Equinox to maintain their presence. Players like Paincakes and tex who propelled Equinox to relevance in the scene are likely to find new homes as not only are teams projected to enter the scene in the midst of the VCT but teams like Complexity and Andbox are similarly looking to fill the gaps in their rosters.

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