Ludwig Loses Another VALORANT Star to NRG

VALORANT‘s esports scene is one of the largest in the world, but it can also be incredibly difficult to succeed in. Organizations are constantly trading, releasing and benching players, intent upon fielding the perfect VCT-ready team. After another of Ludwig Ahgren’s star players brawk has left Moist x Shopify Rebellion for NRG, the streamer has voiced frustration with rebuilding a roster. Here’s everything we know.

Ludwig Ahgren, known online simply as Ludwig, is a streamer, content creator, influencer and entrepreneur. He is one of Twitch’s most popular personalities with over 3.3 million followers at twitch.tv/ludwig and also has 6.59 million subscribers on YouTube at @ludwig. Ahgren operates a podcast called The Yard and creates gaming and reaction-focused content.

Ludwig has always been a fan of competitive games, with experience playing League of Legends, VALORANT and other titles. The streamer recently hit Platinum in LoL after an intense training arc. He has also gained repute as a commentator with extensive fighting game knowledge at Super Smash Bros. Melee events. In 2023, Ahgren decided to take his esports involvement to the next level by becoming a co-owner to Charlie “MoistCr1TiKal” White’s organization, Moist Esports.

Moist Esports, founded in 2021, had a sizable presence in the industry with teams in Rocket League, Apex Legends, Super Smash Bros., VALORANT and more games. Upon the partnership, Moist Esports’ VALORANT team took on the name Moist Moguls to reference Ludwig’s brand Mogul Moves.

Moist Moguls found some success and even scored first place in VALORANT’s NA Challengers 2023 Split 2. They also reached 3rd place in the NA challengers playoffs. The team’s performance with a roster including thief, aproto, brawk, flyuh and sym indicated they had potential for high-level Tier 2 play and perhaps even a Tier 1 run.

Shortly after this occurrance in September 2023, Moist Moguls and Moist Esports as a whole collaborated with Shopify Rebellion, a Canadian organization VALORANT players will recognize for dominating the Game Changers Championship multiple years in a row. Shopify Rebellion’s Game Changers Gold roster became the first all-female team to gain entry into a Challengers Split in 2025 and competed against the team’s SR Black roster which also qualified.

As an organization, the team was known as Moist x Shopify Rebellion. It placed in multiple VALORANT Challengers events throughout early 2025 and took rounds against Sentinels, TSM and Cloud9. However, issues began to surface among the greater organization as they experienced travel issues with their Apex Legends roster and finances.

Moist Cr1TiKal spoke about the debacle on his YouTube channel @penguinz0 on January 17 2025 in a video titled “I Can Finally Talk About This.” In the video, he expressed how difficult it can be to run an esports organization, saying esports is “a worse investment than the Hawk Tuah coin.” White also revealed to watchers that “Moist Esports has never made a single […] penny” and that “over the last four years, I have lost in total right about 4.2 million dollars.”

However, White remained adamant that he planned to stay in the esports industry, stating “I’d do it all over again, and I’m gonna continue to do it.” He announced that Shopify Rebellion had acquired the full Moist x Shopify Rebellion roster in a complete merger and thanked the org for “saving” them. The group had assisted Moist Esports after their immigration issues and allowed them to use Canadian practice facilities.

White stated, “Myself, Ludwig, Matt, Danny and Jeremy from Spotify, we’ve all been in the lab cooking and are so proud to present this new joint team going forward.” He also clarified that “the Moist name is not making the transition over,” but he expected “blue skies ahead” and there would be “a lot of big [stuff] on the horizon.”

While Ludwig and Moist Cr1TiKal’s involvement in esports through Shopify Rebellion has taken a positive turn, the team is encountering new issues as they struggle to maintain a roster. On February 16 2025, Brock “brawk” Somerhalder announced his departure from Shopify Rebellion for American organization NRG. This loss was particularly striking for Shopify Rebellion since brawk had demonstrated quite a strong performance in the previous season’s competitive circuit and had played with the original Moist Esports roster for two years. In addition, as a member of NRG’s roster brawk will ascend to VALORANT’s Tier 1 Americas circuit.

brawk’s departure is also especially notable as he is not the first Moist x Shopify Rebellion player to depart for NRG. Canadian player mada joined the org after departing Moist Esports in October 2024, and Tanizhq left Moist Moguls in September 2023 to later join NRG as an assistant coach.

Ludwig posted about the move shortly after NRG, saying:

“Competing in tier 2 valorant is so hard bro […] just in the last year we lost v1c to c9, Flyuh to KOI, Odeshima to Apeks, mada to NRG […] and now brawk is also going to NRG […] obviously I’m not mad at the players or the orgs but ngl its tough to keep rebuilding.”

Like NRG, Cloud9, KOI, Apeks and NRG are all extremely established teams with extensive esports history. Cloud9 has operated for over a decade. Apeks also recently acquired florescent, the first-ever Game Changers player to ascend to Tier 1 VCT play. While Moist Esports has performed well, the organization is comparatively newer, so they face increased barriers to the Tier 1 scene. Shopify Rebellion’s established brand presence could help with this mission, but it can certainly be discouraging to lose another player to Tier 1 especially while Challengers NA is in full swing.

While Ludwig was frustrated with the situation, he continued emphasizing that he did not hold ill will towards any players or organizations. In a wholesome moment, NRG’s Chief Gaming Officer (NRG Jaime) @bikeage apologized to Ludwig, saying “sorry bro :(“ to which Ludwig replied, “Don’t be!! NRG is my favorite VCT team now so please win.” The streamer also responded to a user who pointed out “that means you’re doing something right if the players keep getting promoted,” commenting “LOL true […] Tbh challengers is still full of talent that, imo, is stronger than tier 1 teams.”

NRG’s acquisition of brawk is not the only ‘mogul move’ they’ve been cooking up. The team recently moved Verno and bonkar to the bench after failures “in terms of team cohesion” and poor kickoff performance. Verno will function as an inactive player while bonkar, formerly head coach, has shifted to an Inactive Coach position.

NRG Jaime stated regarding this decision’s timing:

“The team no longer could function as constructed, so continuing with the current 5 players/head coach was not an option. Given the nature of the VCT schedule, this break is pretty much the only window to make a roster move, so we are doing things now to be ready for when a Champs slot is on the line.”

On NRG, brawk will play alongside star player and former Coutner-Strike pro Sam “s0m” Oh and take comms from IGL Pujan “FNS” Mehta. He will also reunite with former teammate mada. While these unexpected moves are preparing NRG for a potentially powerful VALORANT Champions Tour season, their in-game performance with this revamped team will be their real test.

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