On June 3, Luminosity Gaming announced the shutdown of their Valorant Operations, dropping the active rosters and the management staff. Yesterday, The whole roster and the staff were picked by Shopify Rebellion as their first male Valorant team.
The shutting down news came as a shocker to everyone, as the team was doing well and looked great in the group stages and was looking positive for the playoffs. In their official tweet, Luminosity Gaming stated that their exit was due to the structural change in Competitive Valorant.
With Valorant announcing the new franchising system with only 10 slots available for North and South America, the opportunity for Organisations gets limited. It is no surprise that orgs would immediately try to find better opportunities elsewhere.
The situation was distressing, especially for the roster, and the young roster was suddenly dropped and forced to find a new home. Luminosity did state their support till the end of the season, but that isn’t enough for the players.
Since then, The ex-Luminosity Roster, including the coaching staff, have been unrestricted free agents while still playing under the luminosity banner for the Stage 2 VCT NA Challengers. The team performed well in the group stage but unfortunately could not make a deeper run in the playoffs leading to an early exit.
Now with Luminosity out of the picture, the rosters, manager, and the coach were searching for a new home and had decided to stick together as a team while searching for an org that’d support them.
Their search consummated with Shopify Rebellion, The Canadian Esports Organisation signing them as they debut in the Male Valorant Scene.
Shopify Rebellion is a Canada-based eSport Organisation founded by Tobi Lutke and Daniel Weinand and has been a strong name in North American Halo and Rocket League scene. The Org also has one of the strongest Game Changer Teams in NA Valorant, led by Benita, and they were searching for a male roster.
The announcement was made on Twitter yesterday, where the official Shopify Rebellion Twitter handle announced the signing of Mada, daZZle, bdog, moose, and tiGG, along with Coach mac and manager Connor Larkin.
They have also submitted their application for Valorant franchising and would look forward to competing in the Valorant scene in 2023.
The next challenge for the roster would be the VCT NA LCQ, where they would debut under the Shopify rebellion banner and be one of the teams to win it all, given their strong performance in the recent VCT NA Challengers.
