🎮Upsets, Strategy, and Rising Stars - Valorant Velocity

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Pillinger Hector & Agasti Ngoh
August 08, 2024

Hi everyone! Welcome back to the first Valorant newsletter (that I know of), where I'll talk about the latest competitive VCT matches, transfer rumours, and the latest news on the scene!

Latest Results

In Champions Seoul, the Winner's matches in Groups C and D have been completed!

Trace Esports 2-1 LEVIATÁN

In an astounding upset, Trace Esports pulled off an absolute robbery of a 2-1 victory over Leviatan. The series MVP was Kai from TE, dropping a stat of 52/42/14 and 11/7 in FK/FD playing as Jett and Cypher. As I said in my first newsletter, when the duo of Kai and FengF are on fire, they are the deadly duo, as proven by FengF's great performance on Raze and Killjoy with 50/45/8 and 7/9 in FK/FD. PRX could learn from FengF and Kai's flexibility, as their being able to swap between Raze/KJ and Jett/Cypher allows TE great flexibility in their team compositions.

The first map was Bind, picked by TE. Once again, Trace Esports picked their double sentinel comp of Deadlock and Cypher, while Leviatan picked the meta no Sentinel, double Initiator/Controller comp. Tex was the map MVP, dropping 22/14/2 on Gekko and trying to carry LEV with Aspas' help to victory. But, in a far cry from their performances in Americas playoffs, kiNgg and Mazino played poorly, dropping 6/15/13 and 9/17/7 respectively. Compared to TE, who all went even or positive, Leviatan was unbalanced on this map. As usual, when they could get the spike down, TE was invincible on the post-plant, with LEV managing exactly 0 retakes. This led to a 7-5 in the first half on TE's attack side, and they played well on their defence side, netting 6 rounds to win the map altogether. All of TE had their highlight moments, with FengF hitting some criminal shots on Raze and Heybay with great Deadlock utility as always, which led to their eventual victory.

The second map was LEV's pick of Sunset, one of Leviatan's strongest maps, so it was no surprise when they beat TE cleanly 13-9. Aspas was the MVP on Neon, fully utilising her 100% accuracy while sliding to get 23/13/8 and 5/3 in FK/FD. Both teams pulled out the same comps as each other except for the Duelist pick, where Aspas picked Neon and FengF picked Raze. FengF found significantly less value on Raze compared to Aspas' impact on Neon, and Aspas was the main factor in them winning 6 straight rounds on defence after being down 5-1 to be able to come back with a 7-5 lead. Even though TE made a few attempts to overcome the deficit, LEV was unstoppable after the momentum gained and won the rest of the map easily.

The final map was Ascent, which was extremely surprising to be left in the map selection by LEV, as they are not that strong on this map compared to TE's record of 8 wins and 0 losses. Instead, they opted to ban Abyss, TE's weaker map, which led to their downfall, as TE obliterated them 13-5. It was LEV's turn to play the double sentinel comp, but Mazino's pick of Deadlock found nearly no value on their attack side, and due to LEV having 1 flash from Omen, it led to TE casually strolling to an easy 10-2 first half on their defence side with their pick of the meta comp effortlessly cleaning up LEV. Even when on their defence side, LEV still struggled to find value from their double sentinels, while TE's Sentinel, FengF on KJ, dominated LEV on the attack side, getting 10 kills in the 6 rounds of the second half and netting him the map MVP with 21/11/1 and 3/0 FK/FD.

Overall, Leviatan choked the map selection hard, and with Kai and FengF popping off on all 3 maps, this led to Trace Esports' empathetic victory over Leviatan.

Post-Match Interviews:

Trace Esports insights

Q*: As the Deadlock player for Trace, did you see any differences in Mazino's playstyle on Ascent? Did he make some mistakes that you were able to take advantage of? (Question from N Siddarth (u/SNH231) to heybay)*

heybay: I have to say that Sentinels had the same comp on this map. We just know how to deal with that team comp's utility. I can't say anything else but I think we had a better status today.

Q: You have made it to the Champions playoffs twice now. How do you compare the experience with BLG last year and this year with Trace? What are the biggest similarities and differences you see between the 2024 Trace and 2023 BLG? (Question from Pedro Romero to Biank)

Biank: It's the difference between the team's playstyles. I think there is a big change in myself as well. I have become more mature. In BLG, they encouraged every player and had better individual performances. In Trace, it's a lot more about teamwork. Trace has really good discipline as well.

Q: You have played against an EMEA and Americas team. According to you, which region's playstyle was more difficult to play against, and helped you improve the team further? (Question from Sportskeeda's Sneh to LuoK1ng)

LuoK1ng: For me, they are super powerful regions. I think they have different playstyles. Teams from the Americas focus more on individual performances while the EMEA teams focus on the tactics. I think teams from both regions help us a lot. I have to say we have gained a lot of experience from both regions.

Q: There were a lot of doubts around the CN region. You have now beaten an EMEA and Americas team. Do you have anything to say to the doubters? (Question from HUPU's Baishi to LuoK1ng)

LuoK1ng: I want to say one thing. I have missed a lot of opportunities to be on the international stage. Maybe you can't do it at first but if you keep working hard and put in the effort, you always have a chance to achieve your goals. I want to say that the CN region can do a lot more.

LEVIATÁN insights

Q: While Sunset and Bind were competitive, Ascent ended up being one-sided. What went wrong or caught the team off-guard on Ascent? (Question from Sportskeeda's Sneh to C0M)

C0M: I don't even know. I need to look back at the VOD. A lot of things went wrong. Overall, we didn't play fully as a team today and they played pretty well as a team. You could tell they were comfortable on Ascent.

Q: Leviatan was undefeated with the Deadlock comp on Ascent until today. Apart from not executing the game plan well, did you feel Trace anti-stratted well on the Defense or was it more of the team comp not being executed properly? (Question from Sportskeeda's N Siddarth (u/SNH231) to Itopata)

Itopata: I think we didn't execute the comp properly. They also did some good anti-strats. They were keeping certain areas of the map that we usually never get contested on which kinda threw us off a little bit. Losing the anti-eco didn't help at all as well.

Q: Despite the timeouts on Ascent, Leviatan failed to put up rounds. What went wrong? (Question from FDNEWS' Facundo to Itopata)

Itopata: During the first pause, I had a pretty preset call on what I wanted to do. I think it was my mistake that I didn't refresh the map and our playstyle. In the second pause, I called it and refreshed the players on what we were doing. We just didn't execute our gameplan properly and it took way too long to fix that. The moment we fixed that, they already had all the economy and ultimates so it was pretty hard to win some rounds.

G2 Esports 2-1 EDward Gaming

The second game was EDG vs G2, where G2 narrowly beat EDG in a closely fought 2-1 victory. The match MVP was S1Mon from EDG, with his fantastic impact on the Initiator role and dropping 58/43/24 making him the best player in this series. Honestly, EDG could have won this 2-0 easily, if not for going 11-9 up on Haven and choking 4 straight rounds and allowing G2 to come back 13-11.

The first map was Icebox, picked by G2. The map MVP was CHICHOO on KJ, dropping 21/12/2 and 3/1 in FK/FD but he was nearly overtaken by S1Mon with 19/12/13 on Kay/O and his strong impactful utility. EDG had a great attack side in the first half, going 9-3 and being nearly unstoppable with the strong entries of ZmjjKK on Jett. G2 did make a decent attempt at a comeback on their attack side as well, getting 4 rounds straight thanks to their no-duelist double wall controller of Harbor/Viper comp before EDG closed it out 13-8. Leaf and Trent had pretty bad performances this map with both only getting 7 kills, while Nobody also did not have a strong performance, only netting 6 kills for himself.

The second map was Haven, picked by EDG. G2 pulled off a heist of the game, winning 13-11 off the back of 4 straight-round wins. The map MVP was ZmjjKK on Neon, being a fantastic entry while getting 23/18/1 and 5/5 in FK/FD. The first half ended in an even 6-6, while in the second half, EDG was up 11-9 before G2 took advantage of EDG's various mistakes to win 4 rounds in a row to win the game 13-11. This time, Trent and Leaf had a much better performance, with them dropping 19 and 18 respectively while Valyn also had a strong performance with 19/13/7 on Omen. Surprisingly, Leaf had 7 first kills with only 1 first death on KJ, thus leading to G2's victory over EDG.

The last map was Bind, where EDG just could not pull off the 3-9 comeback and was defeated by G2 13-11. The map MVP was icy on Raze, getting 24/16/6 with 3/5 FK/FD. Icy was the star of the show on G2's attack side, with his performance of 17/7/3 bringing G2 to a 9-3 half. ZmjjKK had quite the underperformance on Raze, as he was at the bottom of the leaderboard with only 12/20/6. Even though EDG had the first kill advantage for 17 rounds, G2 just managed to trade it out or pulled off the 4v5 thanks to their strong fundamentals and team play. S1Mon tried his best on Fade with 24/15/3, but unfortunately, nobody and ZmjjKK's poor performance dragged the rest of EDG down with them.

Overall, EDG had a strong performance, but just could not close it out which allowed G2 and their strong fundamentals to take over the game.

Post-Match Interviews:

G2 Esports insights

Q: What did you think about nobody's performance as an IGL today? How was the experience going against him? (Question from Sportskeeda's N Siddarth (u/SNH231) to valyn)

valyn: I give a lot of props to him. I think ever since he picked up the IGL role, EDG has looked a lot better. I knew going into this match that it would be difficult. In previous LANs, they haven't had the best placements and macro. People were like they played a bit "bad" but after watching their games in China and the matches leading up to Champs, The coaching staff and I noticed a lot of how much they improved their macro. He is good. Props to him.

Q: The analysts have joked that it takes G2 one map to download the opponents' gameplay before you can adapt and adjust, hence some of the rocky first maps and a consistent third map win record. Do you think this metaphor is true? If it is, what are some of the big takeaways about EDG that you used to turn the series around in maps two and three? If it is not true, what takes G2 that much time to get the ball rolling? (Question from Sierra/zhobiii to valyn)

valyn: I would definitely say it's true. If we end up winning a map, then I am very confident we are going to win the series. Going into Map 3 is where the pressure is the highest and people start to make more mistakes. We are a team that is known for compounding on the enemy team's mistakes. That's when the best comes out of us. Sometimes Map 1 is just some problems out of our control and the enemy having a better game plan or sometimes the enemy winning crucial rounds that put us out of the flow. We have to ease into the game. We know that each series is a long process. Just because we have a rough start doesn't mean that it's gonna be bad for us. We shine the most when we are easing into the game and warming up a bit. When we hit the flow state, it's over.

Q: What aspects of EDG's gameplay did you find most difficult to counter, and how do you adjust your strategies to overcome the challenges? (Question from Nerditude's Antonio Summer to JoshRT)

JoshRT: I thought their Attack was excellent. The calling from nobody was really good in terms of putting us in difficult situations. They were able to do strong executes to a lot of little fakes and ending in the late round, similar to what we do. Having all those styles put against us on Bind made it tough for us so we had to be more proactive and stop them.

EDward Gaming insights

Q: The team started well on Icebox. From your POV, what changed from the end of the map up until the very end that caused the loss? (Question from Pedro Romero to ZmjjKK)

ZmjjKK: We were kinda hurried to get the next round on the board whenever we took the lead. That kind of caused our performances on the server to be a bit rushed. Including myself, we should focus on how to keep our mental stability after taking a lead and not hurry a lot.

Q: Despite the loss today, were there any positives that you could take away? (Question from Stefiki)

Muggle: Despite the loss, we think our performance was acceptable because G2 is a super strong team. We think they are one of the favourites to win the tournament. We were so close today. This also showed that the CN league has made improvements to fight well against teams from other leagues.

Q: G2 opted for a new composition on Haven by adopting the Yoru and other Agents of that nature. I want to know your reaction to that. How did you direct the team to play against their comp on Haven? What were the biggest issues you found that kind of prohibited the team from winning Haven? (Question from Pedro Romero to Muggle)

Muggle: I feel like we are not super familiar with their comps. Our method is basically that when there are thirty seconds left, we start our Attack and fight against their Yoru when he pushes forward. We lost today because, during the middle of Haven, we changed our pace and were kind of unlucky to not win some rounds so we lost our pace.

Congratulations to TE and G2 for making it to playoffs, and commiserations to LEV and EDG who will drop down to the lower bracket, and face the winner of the lower bracket from their respective group while in danger of elimination from Champions Seoul.

Upcoming matches

Coming up next, the first elimination matches in Groups A and B are here!

First up is Sentinels vs FunPlus Phoenix, the fallen kings of Madrid against the strongest Chinese team in Shanghai. Everyone is betting against Sentinels due to their recent poor performances and FPX's strong performance against TH. I would bet on FPX winning, but who knows, the Sentinels might have a resurgence and somehow beat FPX.

Right after that is Bilibili Gaming vs KRU Esports, the NRG destroyers vs the LATAM kings. In terms of performance, BLG looks weaker than KRU due to KRU's annihilation of DRX on Haven, who went on to beat FNATIC 2-0, but perhaps BLG might be able to pull off another upset over another NA team as they did with NRG. I would favour KRU to win, but if BLG finds their magic again, then it becomes a 50-50.

News

  • Curryshot, the coach from T1's academy has been let go due to T1's restructuring to full Korean and is now LFT.

  • Coach Alecks from PRX turns 34 today! We wish a happy birthday to Coach Alecks!

  • Every single 1st seed of their respective regions lost in the Winner's final (rip)

  • DZ Corey has been let go and is now an unrestricted F/A.

  • Oxygen Esports appears to be ceasing all operations, which might mean that all of OXG will soon be LFT.

  • MikesHD, the assistant coach of 100T has left 100T and is now LFT.

Closing

Thank you for reading the 6th newsletter! Please post any comments and criticism you may have, and thank you for reading my newsletter!