Team SMG announce new Valorant roster for 2021
Singaporean organisation Team SMG (Still Moving Under Gunfire) have announced their updated Valorant roster for next year, which features two new players and a head coach, in a release on Tuesday (22 December).
Team SMG’s Valorant roster will remain an all-Singaporean lineup, with three core players being retained from its previous one — Sha “ZesBeeW” Mohtar, Alex “falfalfal” Cheang and Xavier “LEXY” Lee.
Both Chun Ting “Divine” Yeoh and Danyal “Kama” Heng have parted ways with the team, with Divine leaving to serve his mandatory national service in Singapore’s military.
Coming in to replace the two departing players will be former CS:GO pros Joshua “JdFaker” Fok and Javier “Egoist” Chua, both who previously competed in Valorant under Paper Rex, while another CS:GO veteran, Hoc Wah “Fayde” Chong, joins the team as their head coach.
All members of Team SMG’s updated roster, including their coach, have been signed to one-year contracts.
Prior to announcing its new roster, Team SMG has arguably been the strongest team in Singapore’s Valorant scene, notably winning local events such as the AOC Masters Tournament in October and TheGym Singapore Invitational in November.
Earlier this month, Team SMG placed second in the Valorant First Strike event for Malaysia and Singapore, narrowly losing to Malaysian squad TODAK in the finals.
Team SMG said that their new Valorant roster will be working closely with the team’s co-founder and Singaporean star, JJ Lin, and his management and music production company, JFJ Productions, to conduct workshops “focused on their individual growth” by giving them training in handling media, personal branding, image and etiquette, among others.
“We make sure every member of the Team SMG family experiences a holistic player development. While performance is important, the organisation makes sure to develop the players outside of the game that will help them further their professional career,” said Team SMG general manager Orrin Xu.
Team SMG was established in 2017 by JJ Lin alongside Dota 2 player-turned-coach Kenchi Yap. The organisation is currently operating teams competing in PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) and Peacekeeper Elite in China, as well as PUBG Mobile and Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB) in Malaysia and Valorant in Singapore.
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