‘Negative aura’: VALORANT world champ Boostio defends benched former teammate

NRG made big changes to its VALORANT team, but 100 Thieves’ Boostio isn’t sold on benching his former Evil Geniuses teammate and Champions 2023 MVP Demon1.

The VALORANT world has been discussing the move since VALORANT News mentioned Boostio briefly talked about NRG’s roster swaps on-stream back on June 9. During the stream in question, 100T’s IGL told his Twitch streaming chat he wouldn’t have benched Demon1 on the new NRG team with Victor, crashies, Ethan, and the return of FNS and s0m. Instead, Victor would’ve been Boostio’s primary pick to bench.

While Boostio admitted it made sense why Demon1 was benched based on his recent performance at Kickoff and Split One, he claimed it’s not a good move for NRG in the long run. “They just don’t have enough firepower,” the VALORANT star explained. “Their firepower is super weak. All of NRG just has negative aura.”

Demon1 was the rising star on everyone’s radar when he won Champions 2023 alongside Boostio and their then-EG teammates. This season, however, the MVP has been in a slump on his current NRG team. Despite this, Boostio still has a lot of faith in Demon1’s ability, comparing him to highly rated duelists like Leviatán’s aspas and 100T’s Cryocells.

“They don’t have the aspas, the Demon1, the Cryo,” Boostio continued. “You need someone with that aim to win a championship.”

Before we even think about the next big international event, we’ll have to see how the new NRG roster does in Split Two, which begins June 22 for Americas. That day, we’re in for a banger match with NRG vs. Sentinels. It’ll be the first time we’re seeing FNS and s0m back with Demon1 on the bench for NRG. Depending on how this split goes, they may be able to qualify for Champions in Seoul in August—but that still doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll have what it takes to win the whole event without their star duelist. Boostio remains skeptical of NRG’s abilities, and it’s up to the current roster to prove him wrong.

“I think if you actually want to win a championship, you have to have Demon1 on that roster. It’s troll that they don’t,” the IGL said, shaking his head. “They might make champs, but they will never be one of these very good teams. There’s just no way.”