How jakee went from collegiate Valorant to replacing yay on Cloud9

“Principally, the explanation we gained the jakee sweepstakes was that his girlfriend lives in Texas,” Pelt mentioned with amusing.

When he received to the campus in Houston, Texas, his teammates, whom he had met on-line and chatted with over Discord, have been shocked that the assured and uber-driven participant that had come to know was simply one other shy teenager.

“It’s your first outing of your guardian’s dwelling, he moved midway throughout the nation from Florida to Texas, and the one particular person he knew within the state was his girlfriend,” Pelt mentioned. “So he was just a little bit shyer, and his character continues to be that method.”

jakee rising into his personal at UST

His teammates from UST described jakee as one of many most driven people they’d ever met in Valorant.

“He would actually be within the room except it was for his class or for getting meals,” his former UST and Reckaroo teammate Nathanael ‘Nate’ Miles advised Dexerto. “Aside from that, he would actually simply be within the room all day taking part in ranked, taking part in scrims, doing his Kovacs routine, or speaking to his girlfriend. So [meeting him] in particular person, I’d say I used to be impressed by his dedication.”

The now-Cloud9 participant would ultimately enterprise outdoors of his room extra and play ranked and scrims on the UST esports facility, the place he would develop a deeper connection along with his teammates, in keeping with his former UST teammate Anthony ‘Tiger’ Colon.

Tiger mentioned the 2 would go to the fitness center collectively and he would pester jakee for consuming an excessive amount of sweet whereas Nate would level out his poor posture. Whereas competing, Pelt mentioned, jakee would usually complain about how sweaty his fingers would get and that he would generally present indicators of nervousness in competitors.

“It’s like my method of joking that, ‘Okay, like, you’re nonetheless human,’” he mentioned.

Whereas the group favored to joke round, jakee was a transparent chief on the squad. The UST group didn’t have a coach or a supervisor so jakee took up these obligations.

“He would inform me one thing that possibly generally I didn’t wish to hear, or my teammates, and we’d decide it up,” Tiger mentioned. “Normally, these kinds of conversations are those that coaches must have with gamers, like, ‘Oh, it’s good to enhance this, otherwise you’re doing this fallacious.’ However he needed to have these onerous conversations with us day by day.”

Historically a Controller participant, jakee took up among the Duelists obligations for UST and ultimately grew to become the IGL, calling from the frontlines whereas additionally coming into websites and making performs.

Within the Faculty Valorant South: Winter Match, jakee had over 80 kills within the higher bracket and decrease bracket finals and the grand ultimate. He was additionally high 5 statistically in Kill/Loss of life ratio, kills per spherical and VLR rating. In arguably his best map of UST’s run, jakee recorded a 39% headshot price and 32 kills on Phoenix towards the Oklahoma Christian College esports.

As a substitute of coasting on his abilities, jakee took it upon himself to attempt to make his teammates higher as he led them to first place on the Faculty Valorant South: Winter Match, which got here with a spot within the Faculty Valorant Championship.

“For him, collegiate is very easy,” Tiger mentioned. “I’ve seen him drop 45 kills in collegiate. However he actually wished to see us develop as gamers and as a group. He may have simply saved doing his personal factor. However he determined to inform us what we have to enhance.”

Cloud9 comes calling for jakee’s companies

jakee was sincere along with his group when Cloud9 ultimately messaged him that they have been trying to trial him for his or her Valorant group.

The group and the director have been shocked, primarily as a result of they didn’t count on {that a} participant of this caliber must undergo a tryout.