Florescent retires for the remainder of the VCT 2025 despite stellar numbers

28 Apr

Martin Arévalo-Östberg

Just months after making the jump to the highest tier of competitive VALORANT, Ava "florescent" Eugene has made the decision to "retire for the remainder of the 2025 VCT season". Though flor was able to shine at an individual level in EMEA, the move across continents to join Apeks at the end of last year simply proved too much for the star player in the end.

A long way from home

By the time florescent became the first female player to enter the VCT, she had long made a name for herself over in the Game Changers scene. Coming off back-to-back Championship trophies, flor's move to Apeks at the end of 2024 immediately shattered barriers.

The move, however, didn't just mean a jump across tiers of competitive VALORANT, but also across continents. Over time, it became clear to flor that she needed to be closer to home. These sentiments, couple with the mounting pressure of performing at the highest level week in and week out, simply proved too much for the Canadian duelist in the end, leading to her decision to take a step back for the remainder of the 2025 season.

"The relocation to EMEA was very challenging and I didn’t always feel at home while in Germany but I want to quickly thank Apeks management and my teammates who all welcomed and supported me over the last few months."

Flor shines, Apeks struggles

After winning the VCT Ascension EMEA 2024 tournament, Apeks' journey through the VCT 2025 season has been anything but smooth. At Kickoff, Apeks were eliminated after winning just one map at the tournament to start the year. Now, at the on-going VCT 2025 EMEA Stage 1, the team wrapped up the Group Stage with a winless scoreline before never-ending technical issues placed the tournament on hold.

Over the course of her team's run at Stage 1, however, florescent more than proved her worth after finishing among the top 10 players in the league in ACS (235.8), ADR (151.7), and kills per round (0.86) over the course of 12 maps. Truly, the stats of star.

Unfortunately for Apeks, flor's exit will leave a large gap in the team's firepower. As for flor, the door stays open for the Canadian sharpshooter to return to the highest level of VALORANT once more. For now, though, florescent's priority remains focused on feeling good again.

"I may return to competing again in the future but that isn’t something I’m putting much thought into right now [...] Several other VCT teams even showed interest in buying out my contract these last couple weeks and Apeks told me I could explore those options for Split 2 if anything made me happy and allowed me to continue competing."

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Featured image credit: Wojciech Wandzel/Riot Games

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