Natus Vincere Nabs Chloric; Division ONE Pros total Three

Towering above all other teams in the VALORANT DivisionONE Spring Split with a 7-0 regular season record, Maryville University’s prospects continue to grab the attention of professional teams in the wider esports scene. The newest product of the Maryville professional pipeline is their VALORANT team’s initiator, Caide ‘Chloric’ Heaton, who, behind the third-highest Kill/Death/Assist (KDA) ratio among qualified players, has quietly built a solid resume for himself.

With a history in competitive VALORANT dating back to amateur teams like Eclectiq and Levitate Esports, Chloric has been involved in the VALORANT scene since as early as 2021. A longtime Sova main, he has piloted a wealth of agents in his career, but has heavily leaned on the Russian archer and the duelist Raze on maps where Sova isn’t favored. His amateur career led to opportunities with Fisher College’s top roster, Fisher College Navy, which he joined and led to an NECC Championship in Fall 2023 as well as multiple top-eight finishes in Riot’s collegiate circuit – CVAL – in Winter and Spring 2024.

Joining Maryville in June of 2024, Chloric resumed his spot atop the collegiate VALORANT scene, including wins in CVAL for 2024 and 2025 as well as a LAN victory in Harrisburg at the Harrisburg University Esports Invitational. Within DivisionONE, Caide has been a critical part of the Maryville recipe for success, consistently positioning himself for success and earning him the highest Kill/Assist/Survival/Trade (KAST) percentage in all of DivisionONE. Chloric’s great gameplay even extends to the North American development scene within the VALORANT Challengers League or VCL, where his Sova and Viper gameplay bolster a 1.16 rating, good for fourth in all of Challengers. Playing under the banner of NRG Academy, a partnership that was inked between Maryville and NRG Esports late last year, Chloric and the rest of their squad finished top six in North America, falling in the lower bracket of playoffs to third-place finisher SaD Esports.

In Europe, the Slavic powerhouse esports organization Natus Vincere – known colloquially as NAVI – competed in the Kickoff stage of Europe’s professional league: VCT EMEA. With a roster centered around their Turkish core of Uğur ‘Ruxic’ Güç and Emirhan ‘Hiro’ Kat, NAVI was poised for a strong stage after their late-season surge at the end of 2025. Strong wins in each of their first two series against Karmine Corp and Team Heretics meant little when NAVI fell to eventual VCT Masters Santiago heartthrobs Gentle Mates – home to another DivisionONE alumnus in Connor ‘Glyph’ Garcia – in their first defeat of a triple-elimination Kickoff format. Their hot start and momentum went up in smoke shortly thereafter, losing to historic EMEA titan FNATIC and withering away in a lower bracket rematch against Team Heretics to bow out with a 2-3 record. Ruxic and Hiro’s consistency didn’t waver much in the opening tournament, but longtime VCT EMEA staple and former VCT Masters champion Andrey ‘Shao’ Kiprsky was a different story, struggling on a controller role that never quite meshed with his playstyle.

Now, reports suggest that Chloric is the next answer for a NAVI squad seeking retribution for a weak Kickoff performance. The signing would make Chloric the third Maryville alumnus, alongside Michael ‘Cryogen’ Luu in the LCS and aforementioned Glyph, to sign full deals with professional esports organizations. Questions, however, still remain for Chloric at the professional level, particularly surrounding his agent pool. While Natus Vincere might experiment with swapping roles around, Chloric has spent very little time in his career on the controller role – less than 10% overall – and subjecting a rookie to a complete role change midway through the season makes for less than ideal circumstances.

Whether he sinks or swims, one thing is clear: Maryville has equipped him with the tools, experience, and, most importantly, platform necessary to draw the attention of the top professional organizations in esports.