VALORANT - Champions 2025: NRG, a burst of energy before things get serious (7/16)

This year's Champions — VALORANT’s annual world championship — will be held in Paris from Sep 12 to Oct 5. To build up to the event, Sheep Esports is presenting one of the 16 qualified teams every day ahead of the tournament. This Tuesday, the countdown continues with the introduction of NRG, VALORANT Champions Tour (VCT) Americas' 2nd seed.

After missing the 2024 edition of Champions, NRG arrive in 2025 with a retooled roster. Austin “crashies” Roberts joined Fnatic, while Victor “Victor” Wong also departed the team. They were replaced by Initiator Andrew “Verno” Maust and Duelist Adam “mada” Pampuch. The goal was clear: return to the world stage after a disappointing 2024 campaign, which saw finishes of 3rd–4th at Kickoff, 9th–10th in Stage 1, and 8th in Stage 2.

The new season didn’t start smoothly. NRG finished 7th–8th at Kickoff, prompting early adjustments. Verno, who had only just joined, was benched and later transferred to Made In Brazil (MIBR), ending his tenure with NRG after just four months. In his place, Brock “brawk” Somerhalder arrived from Shopify Rebellion Black ahead of Stage 1.

Stage 2 didn’t begin much better, with the team once again finishing 7th–8th. After the split, longtime Sentinel and In-Game Leader Pujan “FNS” Mehta announced his retirement, forcing yet another change. NRG turned to Logan “skuba” Jenkins, signing him from Cubert Academy in the VALORANT Challengers League North America and Ethan “Ethan” Arnold took the role of IGL for the rest of the season.

This fourth and final roster change proved decisive. NRG surged during Stage 2, defeating Leviatán, Cloud9, and Sentinels on their way to the grand final. Although they fell 3–0 to G2 Esports, they secured their ticket to Paris and their awaited return to Champions.

Back at Champions, NRG will look to improve on their previous world finish (9th–12th), but the map pool is a mixed bag for the team. Indeed, the map pool includes maps that are favourable for the American team, such as Corrode (100% win rate over 4 games), Haven (60% WR over 10 games) and Lotus (62% WR over 13 games).

But it also includes maps that the team struggles with, such as Ascent (25% WR in 4 games), Bind (33% WR in 6 games) and Sunset (0% WR in 5 games). Also, two of NRG’s best maps won’t be available in Paris — Pearl (86% WR in seven games) and Icebox (82% in eleven).

Having joined the team at the beginning of the year to take over the role of DDuelist, mada is clearly one of the players to watch at NRG. The Canadian player is having a very strong season, as his numbers speak for themselves.

At Kickoff, mada led the entire league in Average Combat Score (ACS) with 277.3, while also posting the highest Damage per Round (173.6). He ranked fourth in K:D (1.37) and second in Kills per Round (0.97). His performance dipped slightly in Stage 1 but remained impressive, finishing with the fourth-highest ACS at 239.9 and the second-best DMG/R at 159.6. Stage 2 was less dominant, with his stats hovering between 9th and 19th depending on the statistics, but he remained a consistent force.

Beyond the stats, mada made headlines for his highlight plays, notching a record of 10 aces across the season, including three in a single best-of against MIBR during Stage 2. He was also first in Operator kills and entry frags. mada is definitely capable of leading the way with his Raze to make NRG's comeback to Champions a success.