Equinox Esports release their VALORANT team

Article has been re-written as new information has become available.

Equinox Esports have released their roster, THESPIKE.GG has learned. 4 players - Ian "tex" Botsch, David "DXN" Nguyen, Kevin "mina" Nguyen, and Jake "Paincakes" Hass have made LFT posts on Twitter, while the last, Danny "cutefatboy" Nguyen, has removed all mention of the organization on his Twitter profile. Nothing has yet come out from the organization themselves. (Update: Almost exactly 24 hours after tex announced his free agency, Equinox have released a statement on the matter. The roster has officially departed and they'll look to re-enter the scene in the future.)

Equinox signed the China Nguyen roster back in October. After good tier 2 results but struggles to break past that, they made a roster change at the end of December, with tex coming in to the roster, initally as a stand-in. With good results - back-to-back fourth place finishes in the NSG x Complexity Invitational and the NSG 2021 Winter Championship - leading into the beginning of the VALORANT Champions Tour, and tex seeming to be a huge spark that the team needed, things were looking up for the roster. However, they've quite seriously underperformed in the open qualifiers, failing to progress to a top 8 spot with losses to Envy, Rise, and EZ5 respectively.

There will be plenty of spots open to the ex-Equinox players, with organizations such as Complexity and NYFU looking for new members, Counter Logic Gaming reportedly entering as well, and even rumours of FlyQuest or Golden Guardians getting involved. However, it is unfortunate to see the promising roster fall apart. All of the players - tex, mina, DXN, cutefatboy, and Paincakes - are now free agents.