After five years of competing in Valorant, Sam "s0m" Oh has announced his retirement.

“Definitely not forever,” s0m said in a video attached to the announcement. In the video, he explained that he had been competing for “basically ten years” when combining Valorant and Counter-Strike, and that after recently winning Champions Paris, he viewed it as an appropriate time to take a break.

s0m lifting the Champions trophy Stepping away as a freshly minted world champion. (Photo by Adela Sznajder/Riot Games)

s0m's entire Valorant career has been as part of NRG NRG North America Rank #1 keiko Georgio Sanassy brawk Brock Somerhalder mada Adam Pampuch skuba Logan Jenkins Ethan Ethan Arnold , first joining the team as a Duelist back in October of 2020. His first foray onto the international stage would be in 2023 as part of an NRG squad that included much of the former OpTic Gaming OpTic Gaming Inactive core, with whom he placed top eight with at LOCK//IN São Paulo and fourth at Masters Tokyo.

After the 2023 season concluded, s0m took a break to focus on content creation but soon returned to NRG alongside Pujan "FiNESSE" Mehta between Stages 1 and Stage 2 in 2024. Already at a deficit in Champions points from NRG's struggles earlier in the year, the squad was ultimately unable to qualify to Champions 2024 and ended their season at home.

NRG had a similarly turbulent start to 2025. After a 1-2 finish in Kickoff and a first-round elimination from the Stage 1 playoffs, the team made a multitude of changes, settling on their final lineup for the year after bringing back Malkolm "bonkar" Rench as head coach and picking up Logan "skuba" Jenkins in place of FNS following the latter's retirement.

The team would undergo a complete reversal, demonstrating remarkable improvement to finish second in Stage 2 and qualify to Champions. They went on to win the biggest event of the year in an undefeated run marked by resilient comebacks, extended overtimes, and a five-map finale against FNATIC.

s0m continued the announcement by thanking fans for their support. He concluded by speaking about his teammates: “When you win with a team, it's truly a different kind of love. I will be talking about them for a while, and I don't know if I'll ever stop.”

NRG NRG North America Rank #1 keiko Georgio Sanassy brawk Brock Somerhalder mada Adam Pampuch skuba Logan Jenkins Ethan Ethan Arnold is now:

  • Ethan "Ethan" Arnold
  • Brock "brawk" Somerhalder
  • Adam "mada" Pampuch
  • Logan "skuba" Jenkins
  • Zachary "Ry" Parr (Manager)
  • Malkolm "bonkar" Rench (Head coach)
  • Joseph "Strong" Edwards (Assistant coach)