Gen.G Esports has moved its final remaining VALORANT player to the inactive list, as Noah “jcStani” Smith is now free to “look for new opportunities” as a restricted free agent, the player announced today. Gen.G is reportedly still in consideration for VALORANT partnership in 2023.
Only jcStani and teammate Nicholas “NaturE” Garrison are the remaining VALORANT players under contract at Gen.G, apart from the still-active women’s roster competing as Gen.G Black. JcStani and NaturE previously played together on Immortals in early 2021 before reuniting on Gen.G in April 2022. Both are actively looking for new teams.
Before joining Gen.G, jcStani spent time on Andbox and Pioneers before joining 100 Thieves on loan for NA VCT Stage One this year, following 100T’s slow start and subsequent release of its newest arrivals in ec1s and BabyJ. JcStani helped 100T secure a win against Evil Geniuses in the final week of Stage One and continued to play with them in some smaller events after, but he was ultimately left out of the new roster for Stage Two. NaturE has been filling the IGL role for Gen.G since joining in May 2021.
Gen.G achieved a modest amount of success in VCT 2021, with a handful of Challengers main event appearances and even a third-place finish at Masters One. With numerous roster changes, though, Gen.G ended up falling short in the open qualifiers for both of the VCT 2022 Challengers main events.
Despite the tough showings this year, Gen.G seemingly remains dedicated to VALORANT. According to a report Dot Esports’ George Geddes, Riot Games informed Gen.G last week that it had “moved on to the next round” of the partnership application, alongside Sentinels, XSET, TSM, Cloud9, and others. There are reportedly “six to eight” spots set for North American teams in Riot’s 2023 Americas league, in addition to teams from South America and Latin America.
