Valorant player yay steps away from pro Valorant

Bleed Esports’ star duelist Jaccob “yay” Whiteaker is taking yet another break from competitive Valorant, citing health reasons.

Taking to X, Bleed Esports has announced that yay will be stepping away from the competitive scene to rest. The decision comes after the team’s underwhelming performance in VCT 2024 Pacific League’s Split One. However, Bleed is looking forward to his return and supports him during his downtime. 

“We fully support his decision to prioritize his wellness and we’re all excited for more yay once he’s back in the zone,” Bleed Esports said in a social media post. 

• Related: Here are the Valorant settings used by yay in 2023

Valorant player yay takes a competitive break 

This isn’t the first time yay’s health issues have caused him to hang the mouse. In 2023, the professional player took a break from competitive play due to undisclosed health issues. During the 2024 VCT Pacific Kickoff, he mentioned experiencing blurry vision, which caused him to lose critical rounds. It is uncertain if this is the same issue that led him to take a second break this year.

In any case, yay’s performance has been below average at best since February 2023, when he was part of Cloud9’s team. After briefly playing for DSG, yay moved to Pacific in 2024 to play for BLEED. However, in a whole year, he has only managed to win one series against DetonatioN FocusMe during VCT Pacific.

Rest assured, he will be returning to the competitive Valorant, Bleed Esports has said. For now, the team is without a sixth player. With the VCT Pacific Stage 2 tournament approaching, Bleed may once again turn to coach Nikola “LEGIJA” Ninić to fill Yay’s shoes. For now, the organization hasn’t yet confirmed who’ll be replacing their star player for the time being. 

With yay gone, Bleed Esports is left with: 

• Derrick “Deryeon” Yee
• Natchaphon “sScary” Matarat
• Jorell “Retla” Teo
• Kim “Zest” Gi-Seok