EG Valorant star’s big break happened by chance – and it was thanks to xQc

Evil Geniuses have come out of just about nowhere to qualify for VCT Masters and Valorant Champions 2023 after defeating Cloud9 2-0 within the VCT Americas playoffs. One esports insider shared after the match that EG Valorant participant, Kelden ‘Boostio’ Pupello, bought his begin due to Felix ‘xQc’ Lengyel.

Evil Geniuses began their very own Cinderella story in VCT Americas after going from nearly lacking the playoff stage, to qualifying for VCT Masters Tokyo and the Valorant world championship. Two gamers that stepped up over the ultimate phases of the common season, and who had been entrance and heart in the course of the workforce’s win over Cloud9 to qualify, had been Kelden ‘Boostio’ Pupello and Max ‘Demon1’ Mazanov.

Demon1 is a relative newcomer to top-tier Valorant play and bought his begin with EG in 2023. Boostio, alternatively, began competing on the prime degree in 2020. To interrupt into the scene, Boostio participated in an early match in the course of the sport’s beta interval, the ESPN Esports Invitational.

One of many architects of the occasion revealed on Twitter that Boostio was solely on one of many match groups as a result of former Overwatch professional and content material creator Felix ‘xQc’ Lengyel backed out – thus giving him an opportunity to shine.

EG Valorant participant bought his begin in beta present match

Tyler Erzberger, who labored for ESPN Esports before it shut down in 2020, revealed that the Valorant match the sports activities community hosted within the early days of the sport was Boostio’s begin within the Riot Video games title.

The ESPN match featured eight groups comprised of esports gamers and streamers from different titles together with Overwatch, Apex Legends, CS:GO and Fortnite. The gamers competed on groups representing their aggressive title with the Apex Legends squad profitable the occasion.

Boostio competed in Overwatch Contenders in 2020 and performed on the Overwatch squad, Staff Hereos, within the invitational as a substitute of xQc.

“Overwatch’s workforce was purported to be led by xQc however he bailed final minute and actually the one substitute they might discover was this random child named Boostio. Boostio performed and legit carried your entire workforce, trying like a star within the course of. After that he bought DMs and gives to begin his profession in Valorant,” Erzberger mentioned.

Boostio gave a heartfelt reply to Ezberger on Twitter.

“You’re making me cry. Jesus bro,” he mentioned.

Staff Heroes completed the beta match within the prime 4 and Boostio was the one participant from his workforce to pursue a profession in Valorant.

After the invitational, Boostio would go on to play for free-agent rosters, Spacestation Gaming and ultimately be a part of Evil Geniuses in 2021.