OpTic Valorant star Marved announces break: “Last year was exhausting”

OpTic’s Jimmy ‘Marved’ Nguyen has revealed that he won’t be joining a VCT partner team just yet as he wants to take a break from competition.

Marved played a key role in OpTic’s impressive VCT 2022 season as the team made deep runs at all three international LAN tournaments, picking up the title at the Stage 1 Masters event in Reykjavík.

With OpTic Gaming left out of Riot Games’ Americas partner league, the future of the team’s players has been a fervent source of speculation in recent weeks. Jaccob ‘yay’ Whiteaker is so far the only OpTic player who has already found a new home, having signed with Cloud9 along with Version1’s Jordan ‘Zellsis’ Montemurro.

During a recent stream, Marved was asked by viewers about his future in competitive Valorant. The Canadian player said that, while he has received offers from “many teams”, he is not planning on moving to Los Angeles — where the Americas league will be held — just yet as he wants to unwind after a long season and attend to some personal matters.

“I want to stay at home, I don’t want to move to LA yet, not quite yet,” Marved told viewers. “I’ve got stuff I’ve got to do and take care of at home. I have obligations.

“What you guys don’t get is that it was kind of exhausting last year. I played a lot of games. For franchising, you have to move to Los Angeles, and it’s not the time for me to do it right now. I’m still young.”

On his stream, Marved has also set up an automatic reply message when followers ask for updates about his future in the chat. In that message, he talked about experiencing burnout while competing.

“With feelings of being burnt out for a while, my current life situation with family, friends, and loved ones, and also with how much traveling needs to be done, I have decided as of right now to take a break,” Marved wrote.

“That does not mean I am done.”