For the first time since the organization entered the VALORANT scene in late 2020, Oxygen Esports is coming back home to fully compete in the NA VALORANT Challengers League in 2023, bringing on a dangerous roster eyeing Ascension.
Oxygen announced their full roster today, consisting of a starting five of Mitch Semago, Josh “pwny” VanGorder, Devon “randyySavage” Bréard, Andrew “Verno” Maust, and Logan “skuba” Jenkins. Former Oxygen Academy player Yassin “Reduxx” Aboulalazm joins as a substitute, and former TSM coach Preston “Juv3nile” Dornon takes on the head coaching role.
The Oxygen roster features talent plucked from all sorts of current or former NA teams including T1, Renegades, and Knights, but the biggest pickup is arguably Mitch, formerly of Cloud9. He has the most VCT experience over the past two years and is the only member of the team to have appeared at an international event.
Speaking of international play, Oxygen has now fully committed to NA VALORANT, having spent 2021 and some of 2022 competing in the Turkish scene with both their main roster and Game Changers roster. The Game Changers roster made several deep runs at EMEA Game Changers series prior to their release in February of this year, and the main roster was one of the top Turkish teams of 2021.
During most of 2022, Oxygen did actually compete in NA with the Oxygen Academy roster, featuring mostly young and unknown talent. 2023 starter Verno is moving from the academy to the main roster now, and the aforementioned Reduxx now fills the main roster sub role.
The full move to and focus on NA makes sense for an organization that bills itself as “New England’s premier esports organization.” The organization also owns and operates teams in both the Overwatch League and the Call of Duty League, as the Boston Uprising and the CDL’s most recent team addition in the Boston Breach, respectively.
The new Oxygen roster will eye the start of the 2023 NA VALORANT Challengers League in January.
