Japanese VALORANT orgs forge alliance to bring winless VCT Pacific team back to relevance

After its inaugural season went awry, the only top-tier VALORANT team to go completely winless during the 2023 VCT season has reached out and found a new business partner it hopes will provide a spark to the team’s brand and competitiveness.

VCT Pacific partner team Detonation FocusMe announced today that it and fellow Japanese organization Crazy Raccoon have formed a partnership that will see Crazy Raccoon grow and manage the influencer and content side of the business while DFM maintains control of the competitive VALORANT operations. Both groups will operate under the DFM brand going forward.

Officially, the operating companies for both esports organizations, DetonatioN Co. and Samurai Kobo Co., have also entered a “comprehensive business partnership agreement.”

With the two groups merging underneath the DFM brand, the remaining members of each roster will unite and compete in VCT 2024 together, although this group is mostly comprised of Crazy Raccoon players. The starting roster, according to the team’s video announcement, will consist of Suggest, JoXjo, Meiy, popogachi, and neth.

With the Crazy Raccoon roster joining DFM and the organization forming a partnership with DFM, the Crazy Raccoon organization will not field a competitive roster in the Japanese Challengers League for 2024. The organization saw a spike in popularity thanks to its international VCT appearances in 2021 but did not acquire partnership status and failed to reach VCT Pacific via Ascension this past season.

Detonation FocusMe had a historically lackluster season in 2023, failing to win a single series all year, after losing all of their regular season matches in VCT Pacific as well as their opening knockout series at both LOCK//IN and the Pacific Last Chance Qualifier. Only Suggest remains from last year’s starting roster.

Given the popularity of VALORANT and Crazy Raccoon in Japan, there will certainly be more eyes on DFM going forward, and even just a single series victory in 2024 will be an improvement from what was a disastrous 2023 campaign.