The post 100 Thieves superstar announces retirement from professional Valorant appeared first on Esport Bet.
]]>The announcement was made through a video uploaded by the 100 Thieves official page on Twitter. In the six-minute video, they compiled his journey so far with the team, his official announcement, and what he plans to do next.
“Hey guys, it’s Hiko here, and today, I am announcing my retirement from professional Valorant.”
“When I first started playing Valorant, I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to remain a streamer or actually go pro in Valorant and try to play competitive Valorant. When I did make the decision that I wanted to though, there were a lot of organizations that had reached out to me to possibly make a team for them. And, it seems like pretty much since Day 1, my vision aligned with 100 Thieves.”
A special message from the captain of clutch, @Hiko.
While today marks the end of Spencer's professional VALORANT career, he is excited to share details about his new journey here @100Thieves. pic.twitter.com/Ideeb7MHTR
— 100 Thieves Esports (@100T_Esports) April 12, 2022
In reply to the video that was shared by 100 Thieves on Twitter, Hiko talked about how grateful he is for his fans and expressed his love for 100 Thieves.
“Thank YOU for being a part of my 14-year journey. I cannot express how grateful I am for my fans, my Twitch community, and 100 Thieves. LOVE YOU ALL!!!”
Thank YOU for being a part of my 14-year journey. I cannot express how grateful I am for my fans, my Twitch community, and 100 Thieves. LOVE YOU ALL!!! https://t.co/EeQpjh3jgp
— 100T Hiko (@Hiko) April 12, 2022
Hiko was one of the players that set the tone for how Valorant would be perceived in North America and the world. He led his team to a championship victory barely six months after their formation, becoming the first-ever team to be crowned champions of Valorant First Strike in North America.
Although Hiko entered the Valorant scene by forming the 100 Thieves’ Valorant team in June 2020 as the game launched, he has been in the esports industry for longer.
The 32-year-old started his professional career in 2011 with Counter-Strike 1.6 playing for a team called Temporary. After an unsuccessful run with his new team CheckSix Gaming, he made the switch to Counter-Strike:Global Offensive as a member of Area 51 Gaming.
Hiko rose to fame after finishing third at the 2012 CS:GO Electronic Sports World Cup. He has since been a big-name player in the scene, popular for his lurking and clutch ability. In 2020, the American chose to retire from CS:GO to pursue a career in Valorant.
While Hiko will no longer be a professional Valorant player, he revealed that he would remain with the 100 Thieves organization as a content creator. After announcing his retirement, he revealed his plans for the future.
“This decision was pretty bitter-sweet for me. I’m sure I’m going to miss competing, but I’m also super excited to announce that I will be continuing my content creation career under 100 Thieves.”
“Now that I’m going to be a full-time content creator, I’m excited to share that I will be also full-time streaming. Streaming has always been very important to me, and now that I’d have a lot more free time, I plan on dedicating all of my focus and all of my energy into streaming and creating unique and new content you guys have never seen me in before.”
Competing for trophies in the professional Valorant space is no longer a possibility for Hiko. In his absence, it will be interesting to see what the team’s odds will look like across several esports betting platforms.
However, we have not seen the last of him as a player. Outside of the professional scene, he would continue to play and allow his fans to go on that new journey with him, mainly through Twitch.
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]]>The post HellRaisers v SJ Gaming betting tips & Prediction; Nine to Five Preview appeared first on Esport Bet.
]]>HellRaisers will clash with SJ Gaming this Tuesday in the opening Group B match of Nine to Five #3 CS:GO tournament which will mark their first meeting in almost nine months.
SJ Gaming will begin their journey through the third season of Nine to Five in Group B alongside HellRaisers, Tikitakan and Nexus Gaming, meaning they are likely to secure the top seed if they manage to win their opening game.
More: Best CS:GO betting sites.
Looking back at SJ Gaming’s form, they were seen participating in only two CS:GO events in July. At the start of the month, Tony “arvid” Niemel? and co. made it to the semi-finals of Finnish Esports League Season 8, where they had to admit defeat to HAVU Gaming (1-2), thus finished third-fourth.
After a two-week break, SJ Gaming took a swing at CSGOFAST.COM Cup #5, where they took down Singularity (2-0) and Touch the crown (2-0), but lost to FATE Esports (0-2) in the semi-finals and with that secured their second top-four placement of the month. The clash with FATE took place on Friday, July 24, which was also their last fixture to date. This means SJ Gaming have not played a single official game in over two weeks, so it’s safe to say they will be a bit ring rusty heading into the opening match of Nine to Five.
Unlike SJ Gaming, who decided to take a break from competing and played only five games since the start of July, HellRaisers accumulated 13 games in the same period with reasonably positive results.
Since the start of July, HellRaisers attended the first, second, third and sixth week of Eden Arena: Malta Vibes and while success was hard to come by for the CIS roster, HellRaisers at least deserve some praise for their top-four placement at Eden Arena: Malta Vibes – Week 2 and a 61.5% win rate (8-5) across the last month.
Despite their success, HellRaisers are no longer the same team we know from their golden days in 2016 and 2018. In the latest global rating update, HellRaisers are ranked only 56th, which is not all too shocking, considering Dmitriy “jR” Chervak and his crew played mostly lower-rated teams throughout 2020 and usually struggled when faced against decent opposition.
HellRaisers finished the first iteration of Nine to Five in 21st-24th place after suffering two losses to Nexus Gaming and showing some struggles against BIG Academy roster (2-1), which is not too inspiring ahead of this match.
There was some improvement on the side of HellRaisers since then, however, the issue with this team is that they do not field a proper carry player. In-game leader jR is currently the highest-rated player on the roster with 1.07 average rating across the last three months, followed by Vadim “Flarich” Karetin with 1.05. The remaining three players all average about 1.00, which is not bad, however, it’s also nothing more than mediocre. On a positive note, no player on HellRaisers is under performing.
We are not too impressed with HellRaisers and their overall quality, but for this match, they are rightfully priced as the favorites. Even though HR failed to impress against stronger CS:GO teams, they were at least somewhat consistent in defeating low-tier teams, which makes us believe they can do it again here.
Not only have HellRaisers proven they can defeat teams of SJ Gaming’s quality, but they also hold a significant advantage when it comes to playtime across the last month.To top it all off, HellRaisers have a better map pool and also hold better results on all of SJ’s best maps.
Clean sweeps are relatively rare in the online CS:GO, but here, are predicting nothing less than a 2-0 win for HellRaisers.
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