Gambit announced their Valorant roster will continue VCT EMEA 2022 as an independent team, aptly entitled Masters 3 Champions, or M3C.
The team will now play under the ‘M3 Champions’ moniker, a throwback to the players’ 1st-place run in Masters Berlin last September. All of Gambit’s Valorant players will remain together during this transition period.
The Valorant Champions runner-ups will not be represented in VCT 2022 for the time being, while Igor ‘Redgar’ Vlasov will lead Bogdan ‘sheydos’ Naumov, Timofey ‘Chronicle’ Khromov, Nikita ‘d3ffo’ Sudakov, and Ayaz ‘nAts’ Akhmetshin through the remainder of Stage 1 Challengers.
“This continues to be a very difficult time for everyone, not least for all of us with family and friends living in Ukraine,” the org said. “We’ve therefore taken the division to empower our players, Redgar, Chronicle, d3ffo, Sheydos, and nAts, to take part in the upcoming VCT competition as an independent team.
Gambit has made the decision to allow individual players to continue in the VCT competition as an independent team.
Starting Wednesday March 16, the players will compete under the ''M3 Champions'' name and all of their postponed matches will be scheduled for the upcoming days. https://t.co/CT2GSDgsxh
— VALORANT Champions Tour EMEA (@valesports_emea) March 14, 2022
Gambit’s Valorant team return as M3C in VCT EMEA
It’s unclear if the team will look to rejoin Gambit sometime in the future, but for the time being, they will continue their quest for a Stage 1 Masters bid on their own.
Riot has been navigating the “escalating crisis in Ukraine” to ensure teams and players can play their games during the EMEA VCT circuit. As such, they postponed the EMEA circuit for one week in late February as the crisis unfolded.
When they came back on March 5, Gambit’s game against NAVI was noticeably missing from the schedule, eventually being played on March 16.
Gambit’s tight-knit Valorant members will now play as an independent team, M3C.Fellow VCT EMEA Group A team, FunPlus Phoenix have also had to contend with the growing crisis by subbing out Ukrainian IGL Kirill ‘ANGE1’ Karasiow to compete in VCT.
M3C join fellow top-tier squads Fnatic, G2 Esports, Team Liquid, and FPX as frontrunners in the VCT EMEA Challengers Stage 1 playoffs, where a spot as Masters Reykjavík is up for grabs.
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