One team still needs to clear a final obstacle before beginning play on February 1 despite successfully qualifying for the NA VALORANT Challengers League. They are relying on the support of the audience (and potentially an organisation that is gaining recognition).
According to member Peter “Governor” No, the Squirtle Squad members will have to adopt a new name before league competition begins at the beginning of February. On January 25, Governor tweeted that owing to trademark disputes between Riot Games and Nintendo, the squad will have to change its name from Squirtle Squad.
Naturally, this is a result of the team exploiting the Squirtle name and trademarked picture owned by The Pokémon Company, a Nintendo subsidiary. Governor, in need of a moniker, looked to the crowd and suggested that the Challengers would be the best response.
A few responses stood out, such as the play on Squirtle’s evolved form Blastoise, “Blast-boyz,” suggested by Fnatic captain Jake “Boaster” Howlett, “Turtle Troop,” an off-brand variation of the original name, and the somewhat inappropriate suggestion of “Squirting Squad,” which Riot would almost certainly reject.
Moist Esports, a suggestion by Squirtle Squad member Anthony “Okeanos” Nguyen, is the one that jumps out the most and has received the most likes. Following the revelation that YouTube streaming king Ludwig Ahgren would join Moist founder MoistCr1TiKaL as a co-owner yesterday, Moist Esports attracted a tonne of new attention. Ludwig and MoistCr1TiKaL were both mentioned by Okeanos in the tweet, but neither has yet to reply.
Maybe Moist Esports will take advantage of the chance to enter VALORANT earlier than anticipated with the new injection of “money to burn” and the ability to create a competition between streamer-owner orgs with Disguised Toast.
