Brazilian esports organization and reigning VALORANT world champion LOUD has informed coach Matheus “bzkA” Tarasconi of his release today.
In its translated goodbye tweet, LOUD referred to bzkA as an “important pillar” in the Brazilian scene and for LOUD’s world championship run this past month at VCT Champions 2022. BzkA coached LOUD throughout all of 2022, which included two first-place finishes in Brazilian Challengers, a grand finals run at Masters Reykjavk, and of course, a world championship run at Champions.
In his own post, coach bzkA says he is free to pursue new opportunities as an unrestricted free agent and is willing to relocate to any region to pursue coaching opportunities. He is likely to receive offers from other teams in the Americas league, with a chance at international offers as well.
The move by LOUD is certainly an uncommon one; no team over the past two years that won an international VCT event has dropped a player or coach from the team immediately afterward, much less after a world championship that was won only a few weeks ago.
Outside of a stumble at Masters Copenhagen, LOUD had a dominant year in 2022 after forming its Brazilian superteam to start the year. Coach bzkA followed players Saadhak and Sacy to LOUD after all three played with Team Vikings the year earlier. In domestic and international competition, LOUD only lost four series all year, three of which were to OpTic. LOUD would end up avenging those losses at Champions, with subsequent wins over OpTic in the winner’s final and the grand final to secure the first international VCT trophy for Brazil.
Both LOUD and any team looking to acquire coach bzkA will need to submit initial rosters before Oct. 15, 2022. The VCT 2023 season is set to begin with the first event featuring all 30 partnered teams in Sao Paulo, Brazil.