Steel reveals what went wrong with DSG Valorant Challengers team
Colin Young-Wolff/Riot GamesJoshua ‘steel’ Nissan opened up in a Twitch chat about why DSG failed as a team in the 2023 North American Valorant Challengers League.
Jeremy ‘Disguised Toast’ Wang jumped into Valorant esports in 2022 with a Valorant team that would go on to qualify for the NA Challengers League.
The team consisted of former Knights players, alongside esports veteran steel. The squad went 2-3 in the first split of the competition, then added in Valorant superstar Jaccob ‘yay’ Whiteaker for the second split.
The squad went winless that split, was later relegated to a promotion bracket, and disbanded after.
Steel opened up about some of the team’s problems in a Twitch chat of CS:GO pro Timothy ‘autimatic’ Ta that was then posted to the Valorant Competitive subreddit.
Steel opens up about DSG Valorant
The former DSG IGL said the team had one player who would show up late every day and then “afk in matches” so he cut him.
Steel then said the organization brought yay in next, who wanted to cut steel and “basically” everyone else on the team.
Reddit user two4you8DSG cycled through a few different players during its Challengers run, benching them and then trying them out later in the season, but dropped Damion ‘XXiF’ Cook and added yay in April 2023.
While he hasn’t spoken much about what went down behind the scenes with DSG, yay said at the time of DSG’s relegation that he and his teammates were no better than ranked players.
“The mistakes that are happening on this team are things in which im 99% sure ranked players could do better, and it’s actually pathetic that we are ‘salaried professionals,'” yay said on social media.
Since DSG has exited the circuit, steel has been getting into CS2 and said he is looking for broadcast work. Yay signed with Bleed Esports for the 2024 VCT Pacific season and is set to debut in the league in February.
