After a whole year of disappointing finishes, one of North America’s former VALORANT superstars has finally found his way back to the winner’s circle with his new team.
Jaccob “yay” Whiteaker has managed to shed the monkey off his back by finally getting his first win with Bleed Esports, following a horrendous start to the year with no series wins. He has also broken a year-long victory drought that started back when he lost to DRX in the second round of the 2023 LOCK//IN.
This time around, yay had the help of his teammates against DetonatioN FocusMe, as Kim “Zest” Gi-seok and Natchaphon “sScary” Matarat combined for a whopping 102 kills over three maps, along with destructive average combat scores. Yay, on the other hand, managed to put up some decent scorelines on each map, including a 15-kill performance on Ascent to decide the series.
Yay’s inability to win a series has been one of the most puzzling phenomena in competitive VALORANT, and his downfall has been spoken about by fans and analysts alike. From team synergy to a regression in skill, there have been many different theories as to why the 25-year-old veteran has fallen so far from the peaks that he once had.
Even still, taking down DetonatioN FocusMe can help yay and his team look towards building some sort of momentum for the rest of the group stage in the Pacific region. Bleed is currently sitting just outside of the playoff picture, but two wins could help push the squad into the postseason—but unfortunately, they are running right into Paper Rex and DRX.
If Bleed wishes to break into the upper echelon, they’ll need all their players firing on all cylinders as they collide with two of the best teams in the world.
