Disguised’s Valorant season ends in disaster with relegation from NA Challengers

Jeremy ‘Disguised Toast’ Wang’s Valorant team will have to qualify for NA Challengers in 2024 after being relegated from the league.

A 0-2 loss to MAD Lions in the lower bracket of the Play-In Relegation Tournament was the final nail in Disguised’s coffin as it sent the popular creator’s team out of the NA Challengers League.

The defeat also extended Disguised’s losing streak to 11 matches. The team began the Challengers League with a promising 2-1 record but then went through a form rut that it couldn’t escape despite multiple roster changes.

Disguised signed Jaccob ‘yay’ Whiteaker amid much fanfare ahead of Split 2, but the former OpTic Gaming star’s arrival did little to change the team’s fortunes. With yay in the lineup, Disguised went 0-5 in Split 2 and found itself in a battle for survival in the relegation stage, where only two out of the four teams remained in the league.

On June 4, Disguised lost to OREsports 2-0 and dropped down to the tournament’s lower bracket. With their backs against the wall, the team put in another lackluster performance against MAD Lions, who won 13-6 on Bind and 13-10 on Pearl.

This was Disguised’s seventh defeat since picking up yay, who averaged a disappointing 0.94 VLR rating with the team in the Challengers League.

Disguised’s Valorant future

Disguised face an uphill task to qualify for the NA Challengers League in 2024. There will only be one open qualifier, where potentially hundreds of teams will vie for two spots in the league. It’s a much more daunting task than what teams had to face this year, when there were six spots up for grabs across two qualifiers.

This marks the end of our Valorant season as we are dropped from Challengers next year

Sorry to all the fans and thank you everyone for supporting DSG throughout these times

— DSG (@Disguised) June 5, 2023

Despite the blow, Toast, who watched the match alongside Tarik ‘tarik’ Celik, still found it in him to praise his players.

“It didn’t end the way we hoped, but I’m still very proud of what these players did in one year,” he said after the match. “From zero esports team to one esports team. And maybe now back to zero esports team. It has been a ride.”