Potentially Tapping Out: DSG eliminated from NA Challengers League, potentially done with Valorant for the time being.

Popular esports organization Disguised (DSG), founded by Jeremy “Disguised Toast” Wang earlier this year, may already be tapping out of Valorant. Last night, DSG faced an elimination match against MAD Lions in which the former saw themselves relegated from the Valorant North American Challengers League. This means that should Disguised want to continue their endeavors in the NACL, they’ll have to battle through the Open Qualifiers once more.

A saddened “Disguised Toast” and “tarik” hosted a watchparty for DSG’s final match. In the aftermath, Jeremy had a few words for DSG’s journey through the VCL. ‘It didn’t end the way I hoped but I’m still very, very proud of what we did’ he said. He continued, ‘From no esports team, to one esports team, maybe now back to no esports team.’

Tarik “tarik” Celik, who was with Jeremy at the time as well, assured the latter that ‘those guys made a footprint in DSG history no matter what.’ ‘It was a wild ride. Everyone who supported us, I had a lot of fun. I truly did enjoy my time here’ he finishes.

Struggles All Season

DSG as a roster, had been struggling since mid of the last split and ended their final season 0-11. Despite the inclusion of 2022’s Player of the Year; Jaccob “yay” Whiteaker, and Michael “nerve” Yerrow, DSG was unable to post a single series win, only winning 2 maps since adding to the two to the roster. A consistent rotating door of talent meant they could not settle into comfort and frustrations deepened for the team as the season stretched on and the losses stacked up.

Having now been relegated, Jeremy thanked the fans, but also reminded them that this loss meant the end of their 2022 journey. Should he choose to continue with Valorant, it won’t be any time in the near future.  

Refreshing Model for Esports Organizations

Jeremy's approach as a newcomer to both the esports scene and esports team management has been a refreshing breath of air for the community. His approach of transparency, platform support (both live-streaming/cowatching the games and creating content with the players for posting on his main channel), and more relaxed less rigid approach to interacting with fans has garnered wide-spread support. However, when it came to creating a competitive roster for Challengers, this was where he fell short, in terms of finding that successful mix of talent and synergy. That said, this is an issue that multi-million dollar organizations face as well and struggle with. As part of the esports journey, taking the good with the bad and maintaining optimism, which he did, is all part of what makes the scene for appealing.

Tough Blow for yay

From his initial hyped signing to Cloud9 at the start of 2023 to now, "yay" has had one of the most sudden downwards trajectory of any Tier 1 Valorant player. After being dropped by Cloud9 in the wake of VCT LOCK//IN, he found himself teamless for several months until DSG reached out to him. For a player who once dominated the peak of Valorant, expectations were huge that DSG would now dominate the Tier 2 scene. Instead, what occured was a tragedy of underperformances from both "yay" and the roster in consistent fashion. That's not to say they're bad players, any of them, but the roster was clearly dysfunctional. What this means for "yay", is that his return to Tier 1, may have just become even more unlikely.

League of Legends is the next scope

Looking forward, with the relegation of the DSG Valorant roster, it does not look likely that Jeremy will look to continue funding the team, especially considering the performance and synergy issues. Moreover, his recent announcement of DSG’s latest roster, a League of Legends North American Challengers League roster is set to be his next big project.

Last week, Disguised announced the roster in their typical content-creator roots fashion: with a showmatch between OG NA legends and DSG’s newest squad. Former North American roster Delta Fox (“Dyrus”, “scarra”, “Voyboy”, “imaqtpie”, “Shiphtur”) faced off against DSG’s roster in a much-clouted faceoff that drew great attention and headlines.

Tyler1 and Caedrel were also notable content creators who tuned in for the event.

Credit: DSG // Valorant Esports