{"id":27909,"date":"2023-02-01T22:16:26","date_gmt":"2023-02-02T03:16:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esportbet.com\/?p=27909"},"modified":"2023-02-01T22:16:26","modified_gmt":"2023-02-02T03:16:26","slug":"mad-lions-return-to-valorant-with-former-dark-ratio-roster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esportbet.com\/mad-lions-return-to-valorant-with-former-dark-ratio-roster\/","title":{"rendered":"MAD Lions return to Valorant with former Dark Ratio roster"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Spanish esports outfit MAD Lions announced on Tuesday they had acquired the org-less team Dark Ratio\u2019s roster for the 2023 <a href=\"https:\/\/esportbet.com\/valorant\/\" title=\"Valorant betting sites\">Valorant<\/a> Challengers season.<\/p>\n<p>The new MAD Lions Valorant roster consists of the 23-year-old Canadian William &#8220;Will&#8221; Cheng, the 25-year-old American Taylor &#8220;Drone&#8221; Johnson, Justin &#8220;Trick&#8221; Sears, the 21-year-old Canadian player Adam &#8220;Ange&#8221; Milian, Anthony &#8220;ZexRow&#8221; Colandro, and head coach Ryou &#8220;MoonChopper&#8221; Nishiyama.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Introducing our NA #VALORANT Challengers roster. @TrickAIM @Ange_AMIL @drone_fps @WillFPS @ZexRow #goMAD | #ChallengersNA,&#8221; the team tweeted.<\/p>\n<div class=\" embed-twitter\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Introducing our NA <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/VALORANT?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#VALORANT<\/a> Challengers roster.<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TrickAIM?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@TrickAIM<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Ange_AMIL?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@Ange_AMIL<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/drone_fps?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@drone_fps<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WillFPS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@WillFPS<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ZexRow?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@ZexRow<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/goMAD?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#goMAD<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/ChallengersNA?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#ChallengersNA<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Db4oagiXym\">pic.twitter.com\/Db4oagiXym<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; MAD Lions English (@MADLions_EN) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MADLions_EN\/status\/1620434649905258496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 31, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<p>Last September, MAD Lions dropped their roster, which they only signed in April 2022, after failing to secure a partnership with Riot Games for the franchised league.<\/p>\n<p>The Dark Ratio roster already qualified for Split 1 of the NA Challengers League through the open qualifiers after managing to come in third-fourth place.<\/p>\n<p>The Director of Team Operations at OverActive Media (the parent company of the MAD Lions), Till Werdermann, stated that the Dark Ratio roster had already been acquired before the qualifiers.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We signed [the Dark Ratio roster] before the qualifier,&#8221; Werdermann said. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We wanted to sign a team and support them through qualification [with] our knowledge on team performance. [Our goal] was to look at the market, see who we think has the best chances, sign them up and give them the support.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Werdermann also spoke about how it was easy for the team to make the switch from the European region to picking up a North American roster. MAD Lions also have teams based in Canada and Toronto, so North America is also home to them. <\/p>\n<p>The Chief Strategy Officer at OverActive Media, Adam Adamu, stated that the company was excited to have acquired the new lineup.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are thrilled to be joining this exclusive group of talented players and established organizations in the National League&#8217;s first season. VALORANT is the fastest growing discipline to date and we are proud to have made it through this competition,&#8221; Adamu said.<\/p>\n<p>The Commercial Director at OverActive Media, Alison Walker, added that it is refreshing to add a Valorant team to the firm&#8217;s existing esports divisions.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;VALORANT is the perfect addition to our existing esports teams and we&#8217;re excited to help bring the league to the Canadian market. We are confident that the expansion in VALORANT will attract a significant audience of viewers while creating opportunities to interact with a new community of fans,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>The new MAD Lions roster will make its debut on Thursday, February 2, against TSM. The Lions are +344 outsiders in that contest, with TSM pegged as -526.32 favorites with <a href=\"https:\/\/esportbet.com\/go\/betonline\/\"  title=\"Claim bonus at BetOnline\"  target=\"_blank\">BetOnline<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u2028<a href=\"https:\/\/esportbet.com\/predictions\/\" class=\"contentLinkBtn\">More esports betting tips<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MAD Lions announced on Tuesday they had acquired the org-less team Dark Ratio\u2019s roster for the 2023 Valorant Challengers season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":19754,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ghostkit_customizer_options":"","ghostkit_custom_css":"","ghostkit_custom_js_head":"","ghostkit_custom_js_foot":"","ghostkit_typography":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3017,401,1150],"class_list":["post-27909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-dark-ratio","tag-mad-lions","tag-valorant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esportbet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27909"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esportbet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esportbet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esportbet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esportbet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27909"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/esportbet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27909\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27910,"href":"https:\/\/esportbet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27909\/revisions\/27910"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esportbet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esportbet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esportbet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esportbet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}