According to multiple players from Pioneer's VALORANT team, Pioneers is "stepping away" from VALORANT, following their failure to qualify to the ongoing VCT NA Challengers 1 round robin. As a result, their players wedid, JMOH, Critical, and thief have all announced their unrestricted free agency status.

"After 10 months with the Kansas City Pioneers, my time with them has come to an end," said JMOH in a Twitlonger. "There were lots of amazing memories and achievements made in this time with KCP. I am thankful for my time with them but now I need to open up a new chapter in my Valorant career. Moving forward, I am an unrestricted F/A and looking to start grinding with a team."

The decision for the Kansas City-based esports organization to step away from VALORANT comes after they came up short at both open qualifiers for the VCT 2022: NA Stage 1 Challengers event taking place now. The organization didn't publish an official explanation for why they were stepping away as of writing this article. It is possible that the spread-out format of the VCT this year, where if you miss one big event there is a significant gap between the next VCT opportunity was a factor in their decision.

Pioneers already lent out JcStani to 100 Thieves, after 100 Thieves made a last-minute roster decision to cut ec1s and BabyJ and pick up JcStani and Bang following a poor start to their 2022 VCT Challengers round-robin event. Pioneers first joined VALORANT in June of 2021, and while they were never a top team, they have been in the mix, winning various B-tier and C-iter events, and placing in the top 8 of the most recent NA Stage 1 Challengers Open Qualifer.