Total Shorty Kills
Story Behind TSM Valorant Team – The Best Valorant Team
Antonio
08/15/2020
Are you looking for a full story behind the TSM Valorant team? If you are, you came just to the right place. Team SoloMid, or just TSM, is a widely spread American Esports organization that just recently stepped into Valorant. The organization was founded in September 2009 by brothers Andy “Reginald” Dinh and Dan “Dan Dinh” Dinh.
Team SoloMid Beginnings
It all started with League of Legends. Reginald was one of the first 100 people to ever play LoL. At first, he didn’t like the game, as he was a Dota fan, but later he decided to give it another try. He started playing with his brother Dan and compete for a team called “All or Nothing”. The duo later founded the LoL community forum called SoloMid.net which was quite a success at the time.
Both brothers wanted to be leaders so one of them had to go to another team. Reginald went to play for CLG but he wasn’t satisfied so he decided to form a team alongside his brother. And that’s how Team SoloMid was born; brothers created a LoL team around their community website. The website is still online and it currently serves as one of the domains for the official website of the team. Today, TSM is competing in over 11 different titles and the newest addition to the lineup is their Valorant roster created on May 22, 2020.
TSM Valorant Team
As soon as Project A became Valorant, TSM responded on their Twitter that they are already planning to win the first tournament.
It was common knowledge that they intend to create a team in this game. However, the first real speculations started on one Reddit thread when TSM accidentally posted a Tweet that they are looking for Valorant team. The post was deleted immediately but one community member managed to capture a screenshot which was enough for the speculations to start.
One month later, they aquired the whole mouseSpaz roster and the team was created. Their roster is mainly composed of ex-CS:GO players and their coach, former CS:GO analyst for Team EnvyUs.
Looking into TSM Valorant roster
Their roster is composed of:
- James “hazed” Cobb as Support
- Stephen “reltuC” Cutler as Support
- Matthew “WARDELL” Yu as Riffler
- Yassine “Subroza” Taoufik as In-game leader
- Taylor “drone” Johnson as Riffler
- Taylor “Tailored” Broomall as Coach
“We’re thrilled to be working together with such an iconic organization. Deciding to move on from CS:GO to Valorant was a hard decision to make but with a prestigious organization like TSM backing you, it makes the whole thing way more exciting. TSM is a cornerstone of the esports community and we look forward to the opportunity to build something with them moving forward in a new and exciting space. #TSMWIN”
Team SoloMid
TSM Valorant Team
Although Valorant is a relatively new game there are already some players that can be considered as professionals. Due to the fact that this game is quite similar to CS:GO in both aiming and economy management, former CS:GO players can easily adapt to it and play it on a professional level. Truth be told, neither one of those players came to Valorant because they were doing great in CS:GO. They all came either from Tier 2 CS:GO teams or were already retired from the game.
James “hazed” Cobb
“I want to prove that age doesn’t matter when it comes to esports”
Cobb is a 31 year-old retired Counter-Strike player, analyst and coach. His professional career started in 2007 back in the Source days. With the release of CS:GO in 2012, the scene completely changed and hazed decided to retire. However, he came back in 2014 and stared playing for NetcodeGuides alongside former CS Source players such as jdm64, tarik and his current teammate reltuC.
James spent most of his early career days in CLS but later went to play for Tier 3 team Mythic, a team known for streaming their practice matches on Twitch. Mythic never accomplished anything significant on the scene so he decided to retire and switch to Valorant.
James also tried another career path as a coach. He was coaching OpTic Gaming for a brief period of time in 2017 but that story wasn’t successful.
He is currently playing as a support player for TSM Valorant team. As a support player, his main Agents are Sage and Brimstone. He also occasionally opts in as Omen or Viper.
Stephen “reltuC” Cutler
“I want to be the best”
Cutler is another 31 year-old American veteran who decided to move over to Valorant after 10 years of active professional CS:GO career.
Just like hazed, he played for NetcodeGuides and later went to CLG where he spent the majority of his career. Cutler also played for Team Envy in 2018 and later went to Peeker’s Advantage from where he retired on April 14th 2020 to pursue a career in Valorant.
He is currently playing as a support player for Valorant Team SoloMid. His main Agents are Cypher, Omen, and Sage.
Matthew “WARDELL” Yu
“I have a drive to compete and win. I don’t care or focus on what is at stake, I just want to win each game we play.”
Yu is a 22 year-old retired CS:GO player. His been actively playing CS:GO since 2016 but decided it was time to go. WARDELL spent the majority of his career in Ghost Gaming but later went to play for a little-known Canadian team Orgless from where he retired on April 28th 2020. Despite being the youngest player on this team, Yu is respected like every other member and he isn’t afraid to take a risk from time to time. He is currently playing as a rifler and his main Agents are Jett and Sova.
Yassine “Subroza” Taoufik
“I want to dominate the VALORANT scene. We want to be able to consistently be the No. 1 team and bring as many trophies as possible”
Taoufik is a 23 year-old Maroccan-born Canadian who also played CS:GO professionally. He switched many teams, from CLG, Ghost Gaming all the way up to Cloud9. However, he wasn’t satisfied in any of them and went to play for Orgless with WARDELL from where he also retired. If we look at his Valorant career at first, Subroza was a rifler and he enjoyed playing as duelist Phoenix. However, he is now an in-game leader and occasionally a support player that still manages to get a lot of frags with Brimstone or Omen.
Taylor “drone” Johnson
“I want to be on the best team”
Another 22 year-old former CS:GO player from the USA. Johnson has a rich career history as he played for some Tier 1 organizations like Splyce and Team Envy. However, during the whole of 2019 and the first three months of 2020, he won only $5,000 for being third at Americas Minor Katowice while disappointing on all other events he attended. That’s probably the reason this young rifler decided to switch careers and join Valorant. If we just look at the prize money, he already tripled that amount in only a few months. Johnson is currently playing as a rifler and his main agents are Phoenix, Sova, and Breach.
Make sure to come back to RunItBack for more interesting Valorant stories, news and guides.
