MAD Lions strips apart VALORANT roster it had ‘high confidence’ in for NA Challengers

After a dismal start to the NA VALORANT Challengers 2023 season, the MAD Lions organization has officially parted ways with two more starting roster members between splits, signaling a massive overhaul of the roster they bet on before qualifiers began.

The organization announced today it was was releasing both Taylor “drone” Johnson and Anthony “ZexRow” Colandro. Having already moved on from former 100T duelist William “Will” Cheng during the first split, now only Adam “Ange” Milian and Justin “Trick” Sears remain from the original starting roster that MAD Lions had high hopes for.

Back in January, Till Werdermann, director of franchise operations at MAD Lions’ parent company OverActive Media, told Dot Esports that the organization had signed the roster formerly known as Dark Ratio before the open qualifiers for NA VALORANT Challengers. Werdermann expressed that MAD Lions had “a high amount of confidence” in the roster, especially after Will had been brought on.

However, most of that starting roster is now gone after just one split. During the first split, MAD Lions won their opening map versus TSM before going on to lose eight straight maps across four weeks, going 0-4 in matches. Will was moved to the bench and replaced by Marshall “N4RRATE” Massey after two matches. While the team was already out of Mid Season Faceoff contention, they at least managed to close out the first split with a comeback win against fellow 0-4 team OREsports.

MAD Lions’ in-game leader Trick posted an update on the roster following the announcements, taking responsibility and saying he “failed heavily as a leader building an environment for success early,” and admitting that his mistakes had an “extreme negative” effect on the players around him. Trick also wrote that MAD Lions would have to “take risks” and make “drastic changes” to the roster if they want to reach Ascension.

While all 12 teams in NA VALORANT Challengers will have a chance at playoffs, the teams that finish in the bottom four will have to start in the lower bracket. MAD Lions are not the only team making moves; Disguised Toast is supposedly trialing some new players, including some potentially massive superstar names.

The second split of NA VALORANT Challengers League is set to begin in two weeks on April 18.