Shroud on going pro in Valorant: "I don't care about all that sh*t"

Even before Valorant entered into closed beta, professional esports players and those that hope to be one declared they were "going pro in Valorant". It was said so much that it became somewhat of a meme.

Now some of those people, like former CS:GO pro Braxton "Brax" Pierce, who moved to Valorant and was promptly signed by Korean esport organisation T1, have the skill and dedication required to take make it to the very top.

Another player who could do the same is Michael "shroud" Grzesiek, the former CS:GO pro made his name as the star of a Cloud9 roster and since his retirement, he has been dogged with questions about a return to competitive gaming - the release of Valorant -which mimics CS:GO's gunplay and movement, has brought it back to the fore.

While queueing for a Valorant game, shroud had a little downtime and viewers of his stream took the opportunity to ask him about going pro in the game.

Shroud was clear that the life of a pro isn't for him anymore. (Picture: shroud)

"I don't care about all that sh*t," he said, adding: "I am not going to play it [Valorant] a f*ckton."

When one viewer referenced a tweet from Shroud that talked of going pro in Riot's new tactical shooter, shroud was empathic in his response.

"No, I didn't, that was a joke, you are not going to see my going pro again, we're past that."

(They clearly didn't check the date when this tweet was put out...)

Shroud then opened up about how "mentally taxing" a career in esports is, and how hard it is to remain at the top in a game:

"It's hard, being consistently good as a team, in a team game, it's very challenging."

Shroud says the life of a pro esport player is "mentally taxing". (Picture: DreamHack)

Part of the problem in shroud's eyes is the fact that there isn't much to separate the top teams making achieving consistent results nearly impossible.

"I don't know too much about real sports right, but I bet you there are some differences with those players like truly there is top, top talent. Then it kinda goes down in tiers. In video games, most people at the top are on the same playing field."

• Read more: Top 10 CS:GO players of all time

"There are only select individuals that do shine, but one person shining is not enough consistency to constantly bring the W. You need five [players], to get five - almost impossible. Almost. Maybe in the future, maybe 20 years from now, when all the zoomers get to the top, but right now in this gaming age were just not there yet, we need a little bit more time. We need more grinders, more zoomers."

Shroud does feel that some can break through those barriers and he had one shining example.

shroud believes s1mple is a unique talent. (Picture: StarLadder)

"A good example is s1mple. He's somebody that is the top of CS, he's top talent, he is just a little bit, or sometimes a lot better than everybody else."

Unfortunately for shroud fans, the thought of seeing him turn out for another team, in any esport will likely stay a pipedream because according to shroud the life of a streamer - a job he describes as "a dream" - and a pro player, don't gel.

• Read more: Shroud leaves Twitch for Mixer

"If you truly want to play at the top. You can not stream your practice - you can't - that's just an easy way for people to creep on your strategy and how you're going to play[...] It would turn into this thing where you kinda have to choose one or the other or try to juggle both, and juggling both is pretty challenging."

"Streaming for me is just the dream, it's just the dream you know?"

Shroud stepped down from Cloud9 in August 2017, moving to a substitute role and taking up streaming full-time. Since then he has appeared at exhibition and invitation tournaments in games like PUBG and Call of Duty: Blackout.

• Read more: Shroud believes CS:GO to get major Source 2 overhaul in response to Valorant

He has played in a number of Valorant tournaments since its release the most recent being the T1 Invitational, where his team was dumped out in the loser's bracket final.