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Overwatch League MVP Sinatraa reportedly retiring to play pro Valorant

Reigning Overwatch League MVP Jay 'Sinatraa' Won is sending shockwaves across esports, as he reportedly plans to retire from the league and shift to professional Valorant.

Ozzie Mejia

April 28, 2020 3:05 PM

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There have been frequent comparisons between Valorant, Riot Games' new team-based shooter, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. After all, the two share some significant commonalities. There have also been a few comparisons between Valorant and Overwatch, Blizzard's team-based shooter, the latter of which has a massive esports league. And that esports league is about to lose its best player to Riot's new hotness, because it sounds like reigning MVP Jay "Sinatraa" Won is about to try his hand at professional Valorant.

ESPN Esports reported on Tuesday that Sinatraa would be parting ways with the Overwatch League's San Francisco Shock in order to join the Sentinels esports team, where he'll embark on a new career as a pro Valorant player.

The San Francisco Shock sent their best wishes to their MVP, seemingly confirming these reports.

He came, he saw and he conquered.

Thank you and best of luck in your future endeavors @Sinatraa🧡 pic.twitter.com/XCyWSzN4UV

— San Francisco Shock (@SFShock) April 28, 2020

Sinatraa himself also appears to have confirmed ESPN's report, noting that he wasn't expecting for the news to come out so soon.

ok wait i didnt expect it to leak so im not ready lemme write up a twitlonger for the first time in my life

— Jay Won (@sinatraa) April 28, 2020

Update: As promised, Sinatraa issued a full statement on Twitlonger, where he cited a loss of passion for Overwatch as his reason for walking away from the league.

Sinatraa was the top player on a stacked San Francisco Shock roster. He helped lead the team to a world championship in 2019 shortly after being named the second Overwatch League MVP. During the regular season, he piled up 20.91 Eliminations and a league-leading 11,849 damage across 27 hours and 32 minutes of action, primarily using Zarya.

The move will send shockwaves across the Overwatch League, which is still in the middle of a tumultuous third season. Even with the COVID-19 pandemic continuing to wreak havoc on Blizzard's ambitious plans for its third season, the Overwatch League recently resumed play and is currently preparing for a league-wide mid-season tournament. Meanwhile, Valorant is currently in its pre-release phase, but is expected to release this summer and immediately make a massive impact on the esports world.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?