In the midst of the Major, OG, who failed to qualify for the challenger stage, have announced the benching of valde, who’d played with the team for over two years.
The benching was somewhat surprising, given valde is averaging a 1.13 rating in the last six months according to HLTV, the second-highest on the team behind mantuu, but the team has struggled to get off to a good start this year when they failed to qualify for the major and flunked out of IEM Katowice in last place.
In an interview this week with Dexerto, valde noted that the team’s ambitions and his own differed; “They want to focus on younger players and develop a team from scratch, only keeping a few pieces from the old team,” valde said.
Later in the article he noted, “I feel that I am ready for a different team, one that is able to contend for trophies now and play in all the big tournaments.”
Given valde is open to Danish or international rosters, it wouldn’t be surprising to see a rush of teams looking to buy him after the Major ends, although not in the IGL position; in the same Dexerto interview, he noted that he had no interest whatsoever to step back into that role.
Many are looking at Astralis as a potential home after they flunked out in the Challenger stage 2-3 with a loss to Team Liquid on Thursday. They could be looking for a switch-up in their roster and valde might actually be a good pick for them.
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