The Valorant transfer market in the Pacific region for the upcoming season is definitely an exciting one, considering a lot of popular names have been mentioned in the community these days. Just one day after Team RRQ’s big surprise, Boom Esports has announced the signing of two youngsters: Sheldon “NcSlasher” Andersen and Oliver “m0rea” Budi.
Fans of Boom who keep an eye on the Valorant competition scene in Indonesia are likely to recognize these two. NcSlasher was a member of the team when it was originally formed in 2020 before he decided to join Onic G in 2022, and was replaced by Onic’s in-game leader, Michael “Severine” Winata, who switched to Boom. And now, he has returned to replace his senior, who is rumored to be leaving the team soon.
Meanwhile, m0rea, formerly known as Budimeister, is often mentioned as one of the hot prospects in the Southeast Asian competitive Valorant scene and has been playing along with Slasher since their time as Bigetron Arctic members. From 2018 to mid-2020, the 20-year-old competed in professional CS:GO before making a switch to Valorant in November 2020 as a player of Team NXL, one of Indonesia’s oldest and most renowned competitive FPS teams.
With the departure of senior figures such as Blazek1ng and, possibly, Severine, it is likely that Boom’s Valorant head coach Ji “Meow” Dong-jun will make a drastic change to their style of play, which now consists of young players who are more aggressive and mechanically better. Of course, it will be exciting to watch how they play together with Rizkie “Berserx” Kusuma and Hildegard “Arnaldo” Shiro, who were praised as the most developed players this year.
Boom will undoubtedly rely on these freshmen to up their game against new heavyweights in order to clinch a spot in the franchise league next year. Months ago, they made it to the semi-finals of the VCT Ascension: Pacific tournament, where they lost to SEA giant Bleed Esports 3-1 and missed out on the chance to play in the Pacific League 2024.
