Kevin “Xccurate” Susanto finally got his chance to return to the professional competition after a year of waiting today after being welcomed into the Valorant division of the T1 organisation in South Korea.
Through its social media accounts, T1 has signed Xccurate, Lee “K1ng” Seung-won, and youngster Ham “iZu” Woo-joo as replacements for Joseph “ban” Seungmin, Kang “Intro” Seung-gyun, and Byeon “Munchkin” Sang-beom, who became free agents this month. Interestingly enough, iZu is the only new player who has never competed in a professional CS:GO tournament and started his professional Valorant career last year outside his country.
Fans of T1 undoubtedly hope that the addition of these three new players will help T1 to improve and eventually outperform their rival, DRX. This season, things didn’t go well for them, and the best thing they did was finish third in the VCT Pacific League. In the following months, they failed to advance to the group stage in the VCT Masters Tokyo and Champions competitions.
Considering the track record of these three players, it’s safe to say that fans can rely on them to deliver strong results next season. Veterans Xccurate and K1ng were aces on their CS:GO teams, Tyloo and MVP PK, and frequently competed in numerous international championships, having faced each other in six matches. Meanwhile, iZu previously played for Jadeite in Japan, where he was one of the key players who helped the underdogs achieve a respectable finish in VCT Challengers: Japan Split 2.
This will be an excellent opportunity for Xccurate to show that he is still capable of playing as one of Asia’s greatest FPS gamers. Shortly after announcing his retirement from professional CS:GO in September 2022, the 29-year-old stated that he was poised to enter the Valorant pro scene but had not found a proper squad or offer at that time. To keep up with the competitive meta, he often scrimmed with top Indonesian players and occasionally filled in as a substitute in local tournaments.
As one of the franchise teams, fans can expect an intriguing sibling rivalry drama between him and his younger brother, Jason “f0rsaken” Susanto, when T1 faces Paper Rex in VCT Pacific 2024. The latter once said that watching his older brother play in China gave him the motivation to play CS:GO and, subsequently, Valorant. On the other side, Xccurate praised his younger brother’s performance with Paper Rex during Champions 2023 last month and admitted that he want to take Valorant competition seriously after witnessing their outstanding performance in the grand finals.
