Killjoy agent in VALORANT looking at code reflecting in her glasses.

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Former MAD Lions teammates turn on each other after VALORANT roster change

Good ol' fashioned North American beef.

Scott Robertson

Published: Apr 4, 2023 06:36 pm

Just a few hours after MAD Lions announced the mid-season changes to their roster competing in the NA VALORANT Challengers League, the team’s current in-game leader and one of the now-former players got into it on Twitter.

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The organization released both Taylor “drone” Johnson and Anthony “ZexRow” Colandro today, effectively hitting the reset button on the roster given that teams don’t have to retain the same player core between the first and second Challengers split.

Soon after, ZexRow started simmering the beef first when he called out the team’s in-game leader Justin “Trick” Sears.

yea I got dropped by moonchopper and trickaim but that doesn't change the fact that trick took over the roster and changed it completely after qualing within 2 months and thinks he deserves the spot lol https://t.co/V5AVTJLUAc
— ZexRow (@ZexRow) April 4, 2023

ZexRow said the current MAD Lions IGL “took over the roster and changed it completely after [qualifying for Challengers] within 2 months and thinks he deserves the spot.” Trick, who earlier in the day made a post taking accountability for the MAD Lions’ disappointing split, opted not to take “the high road,” and responded.

Fuck it bro I’ve never been a fan of the high road anyways. If you don’t bring anything to the team, argue with everyone every single round, have the worst comms of any pro player, and can’t even win a single duel against anyone with hands you aren’t meant for challengers. So if…
— Trick (@TrickAIM) April 4, 2023

Trick tore into his former teammate in response, saying ZexRow “[didn’t] bring anything to the team, argued with everyone every single round, [had] the worst comms of any pro player, and [couldn’t] even win a single duel,” adding he wasn’t “meant for Challengers.” Instead of responding with a separate tweet, ZexRow jumped right into Trick’s replies to fire back.

but if someone has a bad tournament (split) such as been ur instantly to get rid of them but that isn't even my problem, the problem is u got rid of the entire roster and some how said u weren't the problem when u were also by far the worst one out of us in quals
— ZexRow (@ZexRow) April 4, 2023

ZexRow acknowledged his poor comms but replied to Trick, telling him he wasn’t good enough to make the decision to change an entire roster. Trick responded by telling ZexRow he was unable to take criticism, claiming the post he had written earlier in the day was to deflect blame away from ZexRow and that he was not the one taking roster moves.

not looking like you got "dropped" especially by me. stop lying for twitter my boy. pic.twitter.com/H9b4cBQLMc
— Trick (@TrickAIM) April 4, 2023

The two continued to trade digital jabs, with ZexRow posting an allegedly deleted tweet from Trick where the in-game leader claims he “made Dark Ratio myself with little to no help and [led] them to [be] the best [free agent] team in VALORANT history.” Trick followed that up with a screenshot of the two’s Discord message history, which shows ZexRow saying he wouldn’t go back to the team if they trialed a replacement.

Dot Esports has reached out to a member of OverActive Media, the parent company of MAD Lions, for comment.

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Author

Scott Robertson

VALORANT lead staff writer, also covering CS:GO, FPS games, other titles, and the wider esports industry. Watching and writing esports since 2014. Previously wrote for Dexerto, Upcomer, Splyce, and somehow MySpace. Jack of all games, master of none.