UK Valorant star Jake ‘Boaster’ Howlett has spoken about his ambitions to win a trophy after signing a contract extension with Fnatic.
Boaster’s contract has been extended to 2025 with the London-headquartered organisation and his teammate Derke’s to 2026.
Colin ‘CoJo’ Johnson, team director and new project lead at Fnatic, made the announcement in a video with the two players and coach Mini.
The news comes ahead of Valorant Champions 2022 in Istanbul, with Fnatic’s opening match against 100 Thieves about to begin at the time of writing this article. The tournament is essentially the Valorant esports world championship, with the best teams from around the world taking part.
“Our first goal at Champions is to get all the maps down, the second goal is make sure we get to the crowded part of the event, then the third goal is to win the event. I’m taking it step by step.”
Boaster, Fnatic
Boaster said: “It’s been a pleasure [with Fnatic] so far. I’m feeling like it’s time to win a trophy under Fnatic now, I think. I think that’s about due now, I’ve got to get Fnatic their money’s worth!” (laughs)
“I think we’ve got what it takes to be winners.
“Our first goal at Champions is to get all the maps down, the second goal is make sure we get to the crowded part of the event, then third goal is to win the event. I’m taking it step by step.”
Derke added: “I’m feeling good and my time here has been good. We’ve had great results so far so I’m really happy to do this. We’ve shown the potential of this team. We want to see how far we can go [at Valorant Champions].”
Coach mini commented: “For the past couple of years we’ve been through a few iterations [of the roster] and some highs and lows, but we think we’ve identified two really core and key pieces for our roster. One for being our dancing monkey leader and the other being what I said would be one of the best players in the world – and he has turned out to be.
“Jake and I started together like two years ago now, closer to three, and our continuing our relationship is going to be very easy and straightforward. You always want a star player on your team.
“It shows a lot and shows the investment you’ve put into the team and how much we’ve worked to get to this point.”
Fnatic qualified for Valorant Champions 2022 a few months ago, and Boaster was recently immortalised in Valorant Champions 2022 music video ‘Fire Again’.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
