Team Liquid’s in-game leader Ayaz ‘nAts’ Akhmetshin will miss out on at least the opening match of Valorant Masters Toronto due to visa issues.
Masters Toronto is one of the largest Valorant events of the year, with 12 of the best teams from around the world competing for a significant portion of the $1m (£742k) prize pool.
and crucial circuit points towards qualifying for the season’s grand finale, Valorant Champions 2025.
The Russian pro has been unable to fly over to Canada with his teammates, who will be training hard ahead of their first game against China’s second seeds, Bilibili Gaming, on Saturday, June 7th.
However, nAts and Team Liquid are hopeful he will be able to join back up with the team later in the tournament.
nAts reassured his social media followers: “There is still a chance that I will get visa but most likely not before the first match. I hope I will be able to show up to the tournament.”
However, he may not have a lot of time as Masters begins with a Swiss Stage in which two defeats will spell elimination from the event and Liquid were already going into the event as underdogs as EMEA’s third seeds.
Who will replace nAts at Valorant Masters Toronto 2025?
Until the visa is sorted, nAts will be replaced by Canadian pro Erik ‘penny’ Penny, who will get to play in front of a home crowd.
The 22-year-old previously impressed with Version1 and G2 Esports, but most recently helped his team YFP finish fourth in Valorant Challengers North America Stage 2.
He is well known for his Jett play but this year has also played a lot of Yoru and Neon.
It’s a good opportunity for Penny who tweeted about his excitement following the announcement:
“I will be playing with Liquid at Masters Toronto. Excited to play in front of the home crowd and I will make sure to do my best for Liquid fans everywhere.”
Meanwhile, fans of the VCT EMEA Stage 1 champions Fnatic, worried that their Russian pro Timofey ‘Chronicle’ Khromov could also face the same problems.
But Fnatic team director Colin ‘CoJo’ Johnson quickly reassured everyone on X (formerly Twitter), announcing: “Just in case this worries anyone re: Chron, he has his visa as well as Alfajer so we are all good.”
He also revealed that teams started the visa application process on February 20th with Fnatic receiving theirs by April 16th.
In my seven years of esports writing, I’ve introuduced esports coverage to newspapers, interviewed some of the biggest names in the industry, and driven viewers mad with the puns in my YouTube scripts. I’m most proud of the latter.
