Evil Geniuses’ Jake ‘Stewie2k’ Yip has been the talk of the town following his recent announcement that he was ending his time as a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive pro player to pursue streaming with the aforementioned esports organisation. While that might lead you to believe that the 24-year old was finished with competitive gaming altogether, you’d be wrong. During a Twitch stream on August 11, just over two weeks after his retirement, Stewie2k revealed his ambitious plans to compete professionally at the top level of Valorant esports, even adding that he wouldn’t be put off if there wasn’t any initial interest from teams.
“Every day I’ll be on stream. I’ll be grinding ranked, [and] I’ll be trying to get into scrims”, Stewie2k revealed defiantly. “LCQ happens, Champions will happen, [then] off-season comes, [and] franchising comes… Even if I miss franchising, I’m down to keep streaming – watch and be the student of the game – and then get picked up.”
Following on from this, Stewie2k added a hopeful “we’ll see how it pans out” in regards to his upcoming attempts to get into a Valorant esports team in time for the start of 2023’s partnered, region-based league – a system akin to Riot Games’ League of Legends LEC and LCS competitions.
Interestingly, it has recently been revealed that Valorant VCT partner teams could get a bumper payout from Riot Games. So, any team looking to sign Stewie2k shouldn’t have any trouble doing so – financially, at least. And, looking at what Stewie2k has accomplished as a CS:GO pro, it would make sense to bring him into the esports scene of one of the best competitive FPS games out there right now.
Despite facing criticism when joining Cloud9 in 2016, Stewie2k has become one of the most successful CS:GO pros in recent years – even after a rough patch with SK Gaming-MIBR. He’s currently the tenth-highest earner in terms of tournament winnings and was the first NA player to win both a Major and an IGS trophy. Not a bad set of credentials to have going into a new esports scene.
Stewie2k has been climbing the Valorant ranks on Twitch for a little while now, but fans are apprehensive when it comes to his decision to re-enter esports again so soon after his less-than perfect spell with Evil Geniuses’ CS:GO team. That being said, we hope he finds a spot somewhere ahead of next years’ VCT – or at least makes a good go of it.