Quan “dicey” Tran was an average high school student with a passion for video games before Riot Games’ first-person shooter VALORANT turned his dream of playing video games professionally into a reality.
Before getting signed to Immortals’ VALORANT roster in August of 2020, dicey was a high school student in Louisiana. He had planned to enter higher education to become a dentist or an electrical engineer; that is if professional gaming or content creation didn’t work out for him. With a year left to go in high school, however, dicey knew that VALORANT would be his “last shot” at pursuing his passion as a professional gamer.
“I just knew that VALORANT would be my last shot at going pro in a video game and pursue a career competing,” said dicey. “When I heard that VALORANT was coming out, I was like ‘alright this is probably my last shot. I’m going into senior year; if I don’t pop off or make it into the pro scene, then I’m just going to have to focus on school and go to college.’ That is not really where my passion is. I grew up playing video games and wanting to compete.”
From Gold 3 to Immortals’ starting line-up
It was do or die time for dicey’s professional gaming career. However, his start in VALORANT was not as glamorous as others’. Unlike most professionals that transferred over from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, dicey had solely played games for fun. The first title that got him into gaming was Riot Games’ first release, League of Legends.
“I placed Gold 3 but then I kept playing and got better,” said dicey, reflecting on his climb to Radiant. “I just felt like I was the best player in the server in every game I played. My confidence helped me be more confident in my aim and my playstyle. It helped me realize that I could go pro, or semi-pro, in this game.”
Only two months after VALORANT was officially released, Immortals contacted dicey for a starting spot on their roster. Dicey took the place of Joseph “Bjor” Bjorklund, who stopped playing professional VALORANT until he was picked up by Built By Gamers in December of 2020. After joining Immortals, Dicey got the chance to play in his first A-Tier tournament during the FaZe Clan Invitational. There, dicey would help Immortals knock out his future team, 100 Thieves.
100 Thieves win first VALORANT major with dicey
Immortals would release their two young-guns, dicey and Peter “Asuna” Mazuryk, to finalize 100 Thieves’ new power-house roster. There, the two high school students would team up with their “boomer” CS:GO teammates to secure a first-place finish at First Strike.
First Strike was the first tournament that Riot Games officially hosted for VALORANT since its release. It would pit the top teams against one another from around the world in their respective regions. After multiple grueling qualifiers, 100 Thieves made it to the final event with the top eight teams in North America. 100 Thieves were a more solid team heading into the event, despite the lack of playtime they had with one another in comparison to other teams. Over the course of three match-ups, 100 Thieves would only lose two maps in the Regional Final before taking the title of First Strike Champions.
To celebrate their first championship in VALORANT, 100 Thieves put a banner up in the Cash App Compound and gave each player a custom pair of Jordan 1’s. However, by the time their shoes came in, dicey would no longer be on the starting roster. Just two months after winning First Strike, 100 Thieves received interest from another CS:GO prodigy, Ethan “Ethan” Arnold.
Ethan was looking to leave his spot on the dominant Evil Geniuses CS:GO roster and become a professional VALORANT player for 100 Thieves. Around this time, the 100 Thieves camp was testing different VALORANT team compositions. These changes did not gel well with the team; they had inconsistent performances during the start of the VALORANT Champions Tour. Not wanting to let Ethan go to a different team, 100 Thieves removed dicey from the starting roster.
Dicey grows as a content creator
When the news of his departure from 100 Thieves hit Twitter, dicey spoke out to the VALORANT community. He stated that he was thankful for his time on 100 Thieves and that he would return. Dicey’s passion has always been competing professionally in video games; one hiccup in his journey would not stop him. He began streaming to Twitch, a platform where he now has over 66,000 followers. What started as watch parties for the VALORANT Champions Tour soon turned into a part-time streaming career. After only a few months of streaming, dicey’s streams reached between 20,000-80,000 views.
“My dream was to be able to make a living playing video games,” dicey said when reflecting on his potential next move. “It wasn’t to make it pro or become huge [in the gaming scene]. My dream was solely to make a comfortable living doing what I love and that’s playing video games.”
With the VALORANT Champions Tour fully underway, dicey does not currently have many opportunities. Riot Games doesn’t allow players to compete for another organization if they’ve already participated in the VCT. This leaves dicey in limbo until the offseason for when professional VALORANT begins.
“If I get a good deal for content creation, I will probably take the deal because it’s less stressful and it allows me to chill and play on my own schedule. But, say I get two deals: one for competing and the other one is for content creation, I will 100% still take the competing deal. Since I am still so young and I have already won one major, I can win more than one.”
For the time being, dicey is still under contract with 100 Thieves. However, with the VCT slowly concluding, there is no doubt that he will soon be back to competing.
