Sentinels Valorant star Gustavo ‘Sacy’ Rossi has confirmed that he contributed to LOUD’s toxic environment during their dream 2022 VCT season.
LOUD capped off a magnificent 2022 season by beating arch-rivals OpTic Gaming to the Valorant Champions trophy, cementing Brazil’s status as a major powerhouse in Riot Games’ FPS esport.
But despite enjoying international success and earning accolades at The Game Awards and the Esports Awards, the team split up during the off-season, with Sacy and Bryan ‘pANcada’ Luna moving over to Sentinels.
To fill the vacancies in their lineup, LOUD signed two young stars, Cauan ‘cauanzin’ Pereira and Arthur ‘tuyz’ Vieira. And the first impressions have been incredibly positive: LOUD finished second to Fnatic at VCT LOCK//IN and remain undefeated in the VCT Americas league after five games.
In a vlog recorded on the day of the mouth-watering clash against Sentinels and released on April 25, LOUD’s Felipe ‘Less’ Basso surprisingly revealed that his confidence and self-esteem levels were frequently low last year as he didn’t feel at home playing with the team.
“Every time I did something wrong, it seemed like I was bad, which destroyed my confidence,” Less said. “Sometimes, I’d wonder if this is what I wanted for my life. It was really hard. I had really bad performances on certain agents because I ended up playing poorly in practice.
“I got so much flack that I thought I was horrible with the agent and that it was best if I didn’t play with it. That ended up affecting my mental health a lot.”
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Less went on to say that the current atmosphere in the team is a lot healthier. “It’s not an environment where I cannot make mistakes,” he added. “It’s not a toxic environment, so to speak. That gives me a lot of trust. It really makes me want to play.”
Sacy responds to toxic claims
Less’ comments have sparked an intense debate in the Brazilian community about toxicity in esports and whether such an atmosphere should be eradicated. And while Sacy was never mentioned by name in the vlog, many believe that he fostered a hostile environment during his year-long tenure with LOUD.
Questioned by a viewer on his stream on April 26, just hours after the vlog was released, about whether he was toxic, Sacy was surprisingly nonchalant about it.
“Indeed I was,” he said. “I was no saint. But we won, didn’t we?”
After a few seconds, he added: “I’d do it all over again. Just to make it clear.”
Sentinels are currently joint-sixth in VCT Americas with a 2-3 record, with their next match scheduled for April 30, against Cloud9.
