State leaves ROOT Gaming

After joining ROOT in August of 2013, Ryan "State" Visbeck has made great strides as a player. He showed some impressive play at IEM New York, taking maps from both DRG and Flash, and moved to Korea to train with fOu in December. After fOu disbanded, he managed to get a spot in the Prime house, and has been streaming regularly and releasing a lot of replay packs. Earlier this week he hit Top 50 GM on the Korean ladder. State is a great player, and we are sad to announce that Ryan and ROOT are officially parting ways.

We're really happy to have had State as a member of our team and to have supported him as best as we could. Ryan's goal at the moment is to stay in Korea and ROOT isn't able to support him as well as we'd both like to overseas. For this reason, as his contract with us has ended, we've mutually decided not to renew and part ways.

Ryan will always be a part of our family and we're pretty sad about losing him, but we'll continue to root for him and know that he has everything to become one of the best players out there. Even though State won't be wearing our jersey anymore, as others before him, Ryan will stay in our ROOT Skype chat, practicing and chilling with us FOREVER.

During our 6 months together, ROOT has felt like a family more than anything. Living and training at the team house was one of the best experiences of my life, and what I learned there helped prepare me for the time ahead in Korea. Without the support of ROOT Gaming and its sponsors, I wouldn't have the opportunities that I have today. Though I love ROOT Gaming, my focus right now is training in Korea and earning the chance to play for a Korean team.

Thank you to CatZ, Rob Collins and all the ROOT players and staff for what has been amazing journey. There’s a bright future ahead for all of us, and I can’t wait to keep chasing this crazy dream with all of you.