- The 19-year-old proved himself playing for XSET this season
- He was initially set to be signed by G2 along with the rest of XSET’s roster, but that fell through
- The signing of Cryocells necessitated the release of William “Will” Cheng to make space
After a few days of rumors running around, 100 Thieves have finally officially announced they add Matthew “Cryocells” Panganiban to its VALORANT roster for the 2023 season.
100 Thieves Acquire Cryocell
100 Thieves is already preparing for next year’s competitive season. The organization had set its eyes upon XSET’s Matthew “Cryocells” Panganiban, a young and skillful duelist/Chamber player. The transfer comes after the 19-year-old player and his former teammates entered talks with G2 Esports a few weeks ago.
These talks were brought about in part by the fact XSET performed poorly in the VALORANT Champions. XSET was through into the lower division by OpTic, only to be kicked off the tournament entirely by FunPlus Phoenix on September 13.
Following that defeat, XSET’s roster was put up for transfer with G2 quickly jumping on the opportunity and entering talks about a deal. However, due to a string of controversies, G2 Esports did not manage to become a Riot partner for the VCT 2023, ultimately failing to sign XSET’s roster.
Seeing this, 100T jumped at the opportunity to grab whomever they can from XSET’s former players. They settled upon Cryocells, who at just 10 years of age has already made himself a name in the professional VALORANT community. His skills and talents immensely helped his former team dominate various tournaments in the first half of the year. However, this was not enough to propel XSET to the top of the VCT 2022.
100T Makes Some Roster Shuffles
The signing of Cryocell necessitated some roster changes, which unfortunately saw the release of 100T’s William “Will” Cheng. The 22-year-old player described the past 48 hours for himself as “super emotional” but the change did not damage his motivation to continue pursuing a professional career.
Will entered free agent status and said he is most experienced in the duelist/flex roles but is also open to playing at the controller and sentinel roles.
Right now, it’s unknown if 100T is considering other changes to the roster. With the initial roster submission for the next competitive season being just a few weeks away, 100T don’t have too much time to wonder. If no other changes are made, 100 Thieves’ roster could look like this:
- Brenden “stellar” McGrath
- Sean “bang” Bezerra
- Matthew “Cryocells” Panganiban
- Derrek “Derrek” Ha
- Peter “Asuna” Mazuryk
- Sean “seangares” Gares (Head coach)
- Michael “Mikes” Hockom (Assistant coach)
