Team Vitality have welcomed British sports and exercise psychologist Edgar ‘Psych-Chek’ Chekera as the team’s new performance coach ahead of the Valorant Champions Tour (VCT) EMEA Stage 1 Playoffs.
Psych-Chek is a vastly experienced mental performance coach in esports, having worked with Guild Esports, Giantx, Fnatic, Falcon Esports, Manchester City esports/City Football Group and Global Esports.
He is another British member of Vitality’s first-person shooter ranks, joining Counter-Strike 2 pro William “mezii” Merriman who recently helped Vitality win BLAST Rivals Spring 2025.
Joining Vitality at the same time in new VCT assistant coach Aleksey ‘slk’ Lunksov, who also previously worked with Fnatic and helped them win VCT LOCK//IN São Paulo and Valorant Masters Tokyo in 2023.
Both Psych-Chek and slk will have worked closely with Vitality’s superstar player Nikita ‘Derke’ Sirmitev during their time with Fnatic.
Psych-Chek may have also worked with current Vitality in-game leader Saif ‘Sayf’ Jibraeel who spent a while playing for Guild Esports around the same time.
After Vitality announced the news, Psych-Chek responded on his X (formerly Twitter): “Nice to be with some old faces and work with some new faces! Excited to be with this talented bunch and to be part of the journey. Let’s get cooking.”
Nice to be with some old faces and work with some new faces! Excited to be with this talented bunch and to be part of the journey 🐝
— Edgar Chekera (@psych_chek) May 8, 2025
Let’s get cooking 🧑🏾🍳 https://t.co/Bqh4Gl8qIr
Team Vitality had an excellent start to the year after winning the VCT EMEA Kickoff 2025 event and then didn’t stop a series in the Playoffs of the Valorant Masters Bangkok. They were then eliminated after losing to G2 Esports and T1.
However, VCT EMEA Stage 1 has been a different story for Vitality so far.
After the competition resumed last week, following major tech issues, Vitality lost to Natus Vincere to finish fourth in Group A with a 2-3 record.
Now, the team won’t have any second chances in the Playoffs and will have to work through the Lower Bracket to claim one of the three available spots at Valorant Masters Toronto in June.
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