Who is Valorant Pro Player DSG Yay?

On April 10th, pro Valorant team Disguised (DSG) introduced the newest member to their roster: Yay. While veterans of the Valorant esports scene may be familiar with the name, not everyone knows Yay. So who exactly is DSG's new player?

Who is Yay?

Jaccob "Yay" Whiteaker is an American player who, like many Valorant pros, came from the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) scene. In 2020, though, he switched games and started his Valorant career with Andbox. Since then, he's been a member of Team Envy, OpTic Gaming, and most recently, Cloud 9. During his time in the pro leagues, Yay and OpTic Gaming won second place in the 2022 Valorant Champions tournament, the VCT 2021: Stage 2 Masters in Copenhagen, VCT 2022: Stage 1 Masters in Berlin, and the VCT 2022: North American Stage 1 and 2 Challengers. With OpTic Gaming, Yay also won of the 2022 VCT: Stage 1 Masters in Reykjavik. Yay left Cloud 9 in March of this year as a free agent, which led to him joining DSG.

Related: Disguised Toast receives backlash following Game Changers roster announcement

What agents does Yay main?

As a player, Yay is fairly versatile. He's played Controller, Duelist, and Sentinel, though overall he seems to prefer the Sentinel role. Yay is best known for being a Chamber main. But after Chamber got nerfed late last year, Chamber is now a lower B-Tier agent, as shown on Tracker Network's Valorant stat insights. Given this change in the meta, Yay has spent more time playing Sage as well as Jett in competitive play.

Where does he fit into the DSG roster?  

If you want to figure out Yay's place on DSG, you have to look at some of their their current competitive Valorant playstyles:

• Joseph “Clear” Allen- (Duelist/Initiator)
• Amgalan “Genghsta” Nemekhbayar- (Initiator)
• Joshua "steel" Nissan - (Controller/Initiator)
• Damion "XXiF" Cook- (Sentinel)

Given the current roster, it's probably safe to say that Yay will be playing in his comfort zone– Sentinel. With Clear maining Jett and the rest of the team flexing Controller, Initiator, and Sentinel, on DSG Yay will either sit pretty in his favorite role or likely flex Duelist himself at times. With more of the Valorant Challengers 2023: NA Split coming up in late April, Valorant esports fans won't have to wait long to see what Yay and DSG can do as a team.