Four-Time VALORANT Champion Retires From Competing
VALORANT esports' joint-most decorated player of all time has officially retired from competing, just months before the Champions Tour concludes.
Cloud9 White's four-time Game Changers champion Annie "Annie" Roberts has announced her exit from competitive VALORANT, detailing that the extensive schedule of playing 70 hours a week was taking a massive negative impact on her mental health and that she would now like to pursue a career in content creation, streaming, and music.
Annie Retires From VALORANT Leaving Cloud9 White
Cloud9 White's extensive dominance over the women and non-binary VALORANT scene has been well documented, having only ever lost one map in Game Changers, winning the competition on four consecutive occasions in North America. The roster even set a benchmark for women's teams to compete against the men's rosters, becoming the first all-woman squad to progress to the VCT Challengers, where they finished joint-17th.
However, just before Game Changers' first-ever international LAN event with the World Finals in Berlin, Annie has stepped down from the roster.
With the chance to become the inaugural women's world champions in VALORANT on the horizon, Cloud9 White has now signed Australian-born Bob "Bob" Tran to the roster, who was previously playing for Susquehanna Soniqs.
Annie will continue to be operating underneath the Cloud9 banner, transferring to a content role within the organisation, cheering on her ex-teammates as they aim to conquer the world.
Annie Reveals Mental Health Battle In Pro VALORANT
Taking to social media, Annie revealed that she was stepping down from the roster because her 70+ hour playtime per week was negatively impacting her mental and physical wellbeing.
In a Twitlonger, she said, "People meme about playing video games for a job, but it’s incredibly demanding and at times can be quite gruesome. The first year of the team I had played 8 hours a day or scrims and review, then streamed for 4+ more hours because I really wanted to make content. But I also wanted to “catch up” to the other players who had been playing tac fps since they were babies."
"Working obsessively over 70 hours a week was destroying my mental health and motivation as time went on until eventually, I got very sick of playing."
Click to enlargeDetailing what is next, Annie said that high-production YouTube videos and films, psychedelic music, collaborative content, and designing clothing and merchandise will all be coming in the future.
Retiring with four Game Changers championships to her name, only her teammates can match the trophy haul, meaning Annie was one of five of the most successful players of the early VALORANT generation, topping all-male teams in terms of consistency.
