Just days before taking the virtual stage for Challengers Playoffs in North America, Team Envy made a highly anticipated roster change, moving Anthony “mummAy” DiPaolo to the bench and bringing in former Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player Jaccob “yay” Whiteaker. Despite the lack of success of his former team ANDBOX, yay had proven himself with his raw talent and skills on Jett. This led him to his current position as Envy’s entry fragger and heavy lifter.
In his debut match with Envy, yay dropped 60 kills in their opening match against TSM. And while they couldn’t overcome Sentinels, they still made it to 11 rounds on each map. Even with the loss, yay still went positive overall and came out as series MVP for his team. All of this was achieved with only four or five practice matches with the new team under his belt.
“It’s a big transition [moving from ANDBOX to Envy],” yay said. “You are going to a team that has consistently been on the top for a long time and there’s a lot of expectations on you. Not only that, but I’m also playing with a whole new squad. I have to adapt to that and a whole new environment. I have a facility that I go to and more people that I work with.”
How yay became known as ‘El Diablo’
Shortly after signing with Envy, yay soon became known across social media as “El Diablo.”
They're not ready 😈
Welcome El Diablo @yayFPS to Envy VALORANT! pic.twitter.com/P5upy1akyx
— ENVY (@Envy) August 5, 2021
“They’re not ready. Welcome El Diablo @yayFPS to Envy VALORANT!” reads Envy’s tweet.
“I’m not really sure where it stems from,” yay said. “I think some of the Envy guys called me that and then TSM popularized it. They started calling me that because in games and in scrims I always had really good performances. I guess, according to them, I was just really hard to play against.”
While “El Diablo” translates to “the devil” and strikes fear into the hearts of his enemies, yay’s gamertag doesn’t exactly have the same effect. According to yay, his nickname was brought about to insight the exact opposite.
“When I used to play, a lot of people thought that I cheated at the game,” yay said. “They would accuse me of cheating in CS:GO, Call of Duty, whatever game I played in. The reasoning behind ‘yay’ is that I wanted the most annoying and sketchy name possible to be killed by.”
