North American organization Version1 recently practiced with former TSM VALORANT player Matthew “WARDELL” Yu, multiple sources told Dot Esports.
WARDELL played for the roster in practice while Russian player Maxim “wippie” Shepelev was absent. WARDELL is likely a temporary stand-in, however, since wippie could face travel difficulties, according to one source.
As a result, WARDELL has not signed with Version1 at time of writing. It also remains unclear what the duration of WARDELL’s stay on the roster would be.
“The future for me is kinda undecided,” WARDELL said on Instagram today. “I could play pro, but I’m more focused on working out and streaming now. I’m feeling ‘free’ as a content creator. I don’t produce much content though.”
WARDELL, known as one of the most popular VALORANT players in the world, parted ways with TSM on March 23 because he did not move to Austin, Texas, alongside the rest of the TSM players.
Since then, there has been some interest in the player from top organizations, such as 100 Thieves. After several days, it was clear that 100 Thieves would move forward with three other players, however: William “Will” Cheng, Brenden “stellar” McGrath, and Derrek Ha.
Version1 failed to qualify for VCT Masters in March after they lost to Cloud9 and Luminosity in NA VCT Stage One Challengers, which concluded on March 27. The event saw The Guard and OpTic Gaming earn the two slots available to represent the region at VCT Masters, which is ongoing.
