The Cloud9 VALORANT trio of Anthony “vanity” Malaspina, Nathan “leaf” Orf, and Erick “Xeppaa” Bach will go back to their roots this weekend. The North Americans will come back to CS:GO just to play in the ESEA Spring Cash Cup Two, according to Dust2.us.
Vanity, leaf, and Xeppaa made a name for themselves in 2020 while they played under the Chaos organization. Together, they won North American online tournaments during the pandemic such as IEM Beijing in November and DreamHack Masters Winter. Despite the team’s success, though, Chaos released the roster at the end of 2020 and the trio went on to eventually switch to Riot Games’ FPS VALORANT in 2021 and pursue a career there.
This CS:GO reunion is likely taking place only because C9 did not qualify for VCT Masters One ReykjavÃk, the first big international LAN in VALORANT this year, which will run from April 10 to 24. Their squad will reportedly be completed by T1 VALORANT player and former Triumph CS:GO player Rahul “curry” Nemani and Luminosity Gaming VALORANT player Adam “mada” Pampuch, who are also not attending Masters ReykjavÃk.
It does not look like any of these players are considering a return to CS:GO. But over the course of the last few months, several pros such as Timothy “autimatic” Ta, Nicholas “nitr0” Cannella, and Ricky “floppy” Kemery abandoned VALORANT to go back to Counter-Strike.
The ESEA Spring Cash Cup Two will be played between April 9 and 10 and the winner will take home $9,000.
