The Los Angeles Gladiators officially confirmed today that Patiphan Chaiwong is exiting VALORANT and returning to his roots in the Overwatch League by joining the L.A.-based team.
Patiphan originally started his career in Overwatch in 2020 but he was too young to enter into a contract with an OWL team since players need to be at least 18 years of age. Now, he’s old enough to join a team and he’s signed with the Gladiators for the 2022 season, which is set to be played on an early build of Overwatch 2.
Since he was previously too young to play for any of the OWL teams, Patiphan moved over to competitive VALORANT, where he played for Southeast Asian team X10 Crit. They were fairly successful in international play this year and dominated in the SEA region.
In fact, Patiphan’s team is responsible for ousting North America’s Envy, a team that was expected to at least make it out of groups at the recent VCT Champions event. Although they were able to beat one of the top NA teams, X10 Crit ended up losing to Masters Berlin winners Gambit Esports.
The move back to OWL for Patiphan was a rumor for some time. Some fans wondered whether he’d still make the jump if X10 Crit made it far at VALORANT Champions, but it seems like Patiphan’s plan was always to return to Overwatch.
“In Overwatch, there are more opportunities for me outside of Southeast Asia,” Patiphan said in an interview with Dexerto. “Getting to live and play in America is something I cannot find anywhere else.”
Patiphan joins veteran OWL players such as Daniel “FunnyAstro” Hathaway and hit-scan prodigy Lee “ANS” Seon-chan on the Los Angeles Gladiators. With the addition of Patiphan, the Gladiators roster is now up to eight players ahead of the 2022 season.
