It Comes Before Thunder: ‘Lightningfast’ announced as Global Esports newest acquisition for VCT 2024 season

After a brief teasing period, Global Esports had unveiled their latest acquisition for their 2024 Valorant roster, Adhirup “Lightningfast” Choudhury. This now makes the second roster ‘pickup’ for the GE roster after their disassembled their entire roster following the start of the off-season period. Adhirup will join former Paper Rex IGL Benedict “Benkai” Tan on the new 2024 Valorant roster.

Global Esports will continue to play in the VCT Pacific, in a region that continues to unveil roster move after roster move. With other top teams like Paper Rex and T1 showing similar roster changes, the 2024 Pacific arena may be a very different landscape.

One and Only Home

Since his debut in 2020, “Lightningfast” has steadfastly stood with the Global Esports brand. He initially made his name playing duelist, making great use of his strong mechanics to win advantages for his team. Since then, he has transitioned to playing sentinels like Killjoy and Cypher, controllers like Viper. Most recently, on Global Esports, during the VCT Pacific 2023 season, he played as a sub for the roster, coming in as a clutch duelist whenever the roster called for it.

In 2023, "Lightningfast" was part of the GE 7-man roster experiment, which included a variety of star players recruited to form a completely star-studded roster. He would end up playing in 2 of the VCT Pacific weeks, struggling to put up numbers on the new roster. This could be down to synergy issues, as "Lightningfast" has historically not struggled as much as he had recently.

Flex Hero

Since his debut, he has played 12 different agents across all four of the Valorant roles. His most successful role is undoubtedly controller, a role in which sadly, Global did not take advantage of. Posting a 1.17 KD on Astra across 64 games and 1.22 KD on Viper across 51 games, the slower paced playstyle of controllers seems to suit him best.

His signature champion, Raze, also posts a 1.08 KD, with 173 First Bloods across 55 games. Despite the expected lower KD, his explosive style leans well for a roster that could share stylistic similarities with Paper Rex.

The 22-year-old continues to have a flexible playstyle and showed decent potential at role swapping depending on the needs of the roster. He is a good second pick for the roster, with an IGL like “Benkai” having such a tool to use at his disposal. It will be interesting to watch in the coming months how Global Esports will approach the rest of their roster-building. Global Esports has once again announced they are looking to launch another 7-man Valorant lineup.

Global Esports roster, as of now, consists of these players:

• Benedict “Benkai” Tan
• Adhirup “Lightningfast” Choudhury

Stats taken from vlr.gg. Keep up with all the Valorant Roster Changes on the Strafe VCT 2024 Rostermania.

Credits: Lance Skundrich/Riot Games