VALORANT – Andbox and JcStani go their separate ways

Andbox and JcStani go their separate ways. It was announced this week that Noah “jcStani” Smith is now a free agent, with the American having left Andbox. As a result, the North American organization are now believed to be holding trials as they look to rebuild their VALORANT roster.

It is a period of transition for Andbox, who recently practiced without both Jaccob “yay” Whiteaker and Zander “thiwfo” Kim, the latter having been on loan from XSET. JcStani only joined Andbox back in May, having previously enjoyed two spells with Immortals.

The 20-year-old departed Andbox as they failed to make an impact at the NA VALORANT Champions Tour Stage ThreeL Challengers Two open qualifier, where they were ultimately eliminated by TSM. The result also means that Andbox missed the chance to qualify for the NA VCT Stage Three: Challengers Playoffs, where teams could confirm their place at the Masters Three Berlin.

What jcStani said on his departure from Andbox

Speaking on his departure from Andbox, jcStani stated that: “There were some creative differences over the last couple months in how we wanted to approach things and this parting is for the best. After having some time to think about the recent loss, I regret making a tweet referencing ping-related excuses following our VCT elimination.

I worked hard over the last year to be a flexible and consistent player and I think I found success often on both an individual and team level. But last week’s loss to TSM—from my individual performance perspective—was such a low for me. The feeling of letting your teammates down while they were all making clutch play after clutch play to try and help us win was demoralizing.”

What the future holds for Andbox & jcStani

The Andbox VALORANT roster now features only Adam “mada” Pampuch, Daniel “vice” Kim and yay. Ex-Evil Geniuses pro Aleksandar Hinojosa and EZ5’s Eric “kanpeki” Xu are two of the players believed to be under consideration by Andbox.

The future for jcStani remains unclear at this point. However, he has promised to return to streaming at the end of August, following a move to Austin, Texas.