Kansas City Pioneers' roster disbands as the organization departs from Valorant

Although we are still waiting for an official announcement, a few members of Kansas City Pioneers’s took to twitter to announced the team’s departure from the Valorant scene for the “time being”.

Kansas City Pioneer’s entry into the scene came last year in June 2021, halfway through the VCT season. Building a team from scratch this late into the season would’ve limited their tournament opportunities further, which is why they acquired FPL-C’s roster as their core foundation. They had missed the deadline for Stage 1 and 2, and could compete only in the Stage 3 Challengers of VCT 2021, which they surprisingly managed to qualify for. Unfortunately, in the main event, they were pitted against Sentinels and had to encounter a tough loss. VCT 2021 - Stage 3 - North America - Challengers 2 didn’t bear any good news for the team either, as FaZe Clan was quick to eliminate them this time around.

After a disappointing run in the Main Event tournaments, KCP decided to introduce changes to their roster. They decided to bench three members of their current roster, part ways with another to bring four additional players momentarily on trial. Among these four members were future signees, Brady "thief" Dever, Tristan "Critical" Trinacty, and Matthew "Wedid" Suchan. They had also picked up in-game leader Noah "jcStani" Smith about a month before that decision and now had a finalized squad going into the 2022 VCT season.

Despite the considerable roster changes, the new roster wasn’t able to put together any mind-blowing performances due to the lack of experience playing together as a team. Even though they had respectable placements in the NSG Winter tournaments, their opposition was relatively weak making it an unfair metric to quantify their performance against. In Knights Arena VALORAMPAGE - Main Event, they managed a 5th-8th place higher than the likes of Version1 and Pittsburgh Knights but their gameplay still needed improvement.

Finally, the time for VCT 2022 - North America - Stage 1 - Open Qualifier 1, and VCT 2022 - North America - Stage 1 - Open Qualifier 2 arrived, but KCP was disheartened in both tournaments and settling for 9th-12th, and 7th-8th placements respectively. After being stripped off the opportunity to play in the Stage 1 Challengers Main event, they tried their luck once again in NSG 2022 Winter Championship - Finals, but were let down yet again, this time for a 9th-12th place finish as well.

Noah "jcStani" Smith had been a part of the KCP roster since November until 100 Thieves decided to acquire him on a loan to improve their chances of qualifying for the Playoffs from the Group Stages. Today, several members of the roster tweeted about Kansas City Pioneers’s departure from the scene and their status as a unrestricted F/A looking for new opportunities.

At the time of disbanding, the KCP roster was as follows: