Shahzeb Asghar Khan (born October 8, 1993), better known as ShahZaM, is a content creator and streamer. He was a former '' CS:GO'' professional player before announcing that he would be officially making the switch to Riot Games' ''

Valorant ''Valorant'' is a 2020 First-person shooter, first-person tactical shooter, tactical hero shooter video game developed and published by Riot Games. A free-to-play game, ''Valorant'' takes inspiration from the ''Counter-Strike'' series, borrow ...

''. He would find most of his success in ''

'' as he went on to win their first international LAN tournament in Reykjavík, Iceland.

Early life and career history

Khan grew up in

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders the states of Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east ...

. On December 15, 2014, he joined

Cloud9 Cloud9 Esports, Inc., or simply Cloud9 (C9), is an American professional esports company based in Santa Monica, California. The company was originally founded as a professional ''League of Legends'' team by Jack and Paullie Etienne in May 2013 ...

. Khan was central in uncovering the

iBuyPower and NetcodeGuides match fixing scandal The ''Counter-Strike'' match fixing scandal was a 2014 match fixing scandal in the North American professional scene of '' Counter-Strike: Global Offensive'' (''CS:GO''). It involved a match between two teams, iBUYPOWER and NetCodeGuides.com, where ...

, after he issued a statement confirming that the match at issue had been thrown. On April 13, 2016, he was released from

OpTic Gaming OpTic Gaming is an American professional eSports, esports and entertainment organization headquartered in Frisco, Texas. The organization currently operates a ''Call of Duty'' team in the Call of Duty League, OpTic Texas, and a Halo (franchise), ...

. On May 19, 2016

Echo Fox Echo Fox was an American esports organization. It was founded on December 18, 2015, by retired basketball player Rick Fox, who created Echo Fox after he purchased the NA LCS spot of Gravity Gaming. The organization had expanded into various ...

replaced AWPer Mohamad "m0E" Assad (who was promoted to general manager), picking up ShahZaM as his replacement. On December 15, 2016, ShahZaM and Sgares joined

Team SoloMid TSM (initialism derived from the previous name Team SoloMid) is a professional esports organization based in the United States. It was founded in September 2009 by Andy Dinh, Andy "Reginald" Dinh. TSM currently fields players in ''Apex Legends' ...

. On January 17, 2017, ShahZaM and the rest of the Team SoloMid roster were acquired by

Misfits Gaming Misfits Gaming is a professional esports organization based in Boca Raton, Florida, with players competing in ''League of Legends'', ''Overwatch'', ''Call of Duty'', ''Fortnite'', and ''Roblox''. It was founded on 18 May 2016 by Ben Spoont, i ...

. On February 7, 2018, ShahZaM joined

. On April 27, 2018, ShahZaM joined compLexity Gaming as an AWPer. On October 28, 2019, ShahZaM was removed from the active roster of compLexity Gaming. The announcement was made in the wake of Complexity's poor performance during the months prior, including their early elimination from the StarSeries Berlin Major. ShahZaM later communicated on his Twitch stream that the team had struggled in large part due to the relative inexperience of many of the team's members, which included the then 16 year old Owen "oBo" Schlatter. ShahZaM expressed frustration with not being able to focus on his primary role of AWPing due to constantly having to perform in-game duties that on a more experienced roster would have been able to take on. On November 26, 2019, ShahZaM announced his free-agency via Twitter, bringing an official end to his time with CompLexity Gaming. ShahZaM also mentioned his eagerness to find a new team as quickly as possible. On April 28, 2020, ShahZaM signed with Sentinels, officially making the switch over to ''Valorant''. On October 6, 2022, ShahZaM was informed live on his Twitch stream that he would not be offered a renewed contract with Sentinels when his current contract expires at the end of the year.

Awards and nominations

References

{{Echo Fox Echo Fox players American esports players Counter-Strike players Pakistani emigrants to the United States Pakistani esports players 1993 births Living people Cloud9 (esports) players Misfits Gaming players OpTic Gaming players Denial Esports players Tempo Storm players Team SoloMid players Valorant players