Which teams have made it through the Open Qualifier and secured a spot for themselves in the VALORANT Challengers 2 NA?
The first VCT open qualifier exposed the faults of the scene’s historically dominant teams and showed that tier one organizations still have to earn their place in this new era of VALORANT esports. Teams like Luminosity Gaming, Xset, and Carpe Nocturne were able to knock out heavy favorites and some of the best First Strike performers.
These upsets point to the fact that this relatively new and emerging esport is still finding the best rosters and tactics. 100 Thieves, Faze, Cloud9, TSM, and Gen.G were just some of the teams unceremoniously defeated in the first open qualifier but they all had a shot at redemption this weekend.
100 Thieves prove themselves
The North American First Strike Champions had the most to prove coming into this tournament as their upset was perhaps the most shocking. Nitr0’s shotcalling presence alongside IGL, Steel, was sorely missed but in his return, he brought the team back to their past success and lending his incredible game sense and mechanical skill.
100 Thieves were dominant throughout this tournament as they won 2-0 over every opponent, though at the precipice of locking their spot to the closed qualifier Andbox stood as the final and most difficult hurdle.
Andbox’s Yay and Android put on highlight reel performances and kept 100 Thieves playing on the backfoot with an almost perpetual 3 round disadvantage. 100 Thieves managed to secure the series however as Asuna had an MVP performance, averaging 323 DPR and getting 40 kills across two games. Now moving into another tournament, 100 Thieves will have to bring this level of gameplay to another round of qualifiers if they hope to punch their ticket to the Masters
More cohesion at FaZe
Between Marved, Babybay, and Corey, Faze’s win condition has heavily relied on individual performance and the clutch potential of these players. This strategy has often come at the expense of teamplay however, as the three listed above seem to compete with each other for the primary carry position and end up looking disjointed and unorganized.
Faze made great strides throughout this tournament as they look like a more cohesive squad, moving away from the triple duelist composition that has plagued them in countless games. Though synergizing abilities and setting up plays much better than previous tournaments, Faze was still almost upset once again courtesy of Built By Gamers. Squeaking by to get to the closed qualifiers, Faze still has a lot of improvements to make before Masters.
A first for Gen.G
Before the series that locked in their spot to closed qualifiers, Gen.G had never beaten TSM in a multi-game series. Gen.G had a dominant showing in game one on Icebox, Hyunh particularly shining on the Jett Operator ending with a 1.54 K/D ratio and a 71% entry frag success rate that enabled most of the round wins Gen.G saw. Though TSM started coming alive as Gen.G neared match point, gMd snuffed out the First Strike finalist’s resurgence.
Ultimately, Gen.G’s methodical style heavily relied on mistakes by TSM. Going into the next qualifying tournament, the roster could stand to play more proactively and aggressively. Shawn hinted that they have the individual ability to do so, they just need the right composition to facilitate fraggers.
Cloud9 disappoint again
C9’s foray into VALORANT has been tumultuous to say the least. Initially having one of the most promising rosters centered around Tenz, the organization always contended with Sentinels and TSM for the top. C9 faced a major roster shuffle when Tenz transitioned into a full-time content creator and the organization dropped IGL Shinobi, leaving the team with an identity crisis.
Filling the spot that Tenz left with fellow ex-CS:GO player, Leaf, Cloud9 thought contracting another independent fragger would cover inconsistencies that the team had shown. Leaf has fulfilled his role as the team’s primary fragger, averaging a 1.07 K/D and accruing 546 kills in his relatively short stint in VALORANT, the team still fell to Gen.G in the round of 8. This was one of C9’s better performances since introducing this new roster however this team still has yet to find their footing.
TSM can’t find consistency
Though cruising through the first five series, TSM once again failed to qualify for the closed qualifier tournament. TSM’s early round struggles, particularly pistol rounds, still put them in a massively disadvantageous position where they consistently are forced to play on the backfoot and catch up. Against Gen.G, the roster was often pushed into force buy positions and had expensive losses as they only won 45% of partial/full buy rounds.
Wardell remains a strong center for the team to play around, as he dropped 70 kills across the series and averaged 1.03 kills per round and opened up most of the team’s opportunities.
TSM experimented with a variety of ‘off-meta’ compositions primarily triple smokers, which may give them an upper hand in the next open qualifier with more practice. With the individual talent this team has, and the success they have seen in the past, TSM have certainly have the ability to make it to the Masters, however their margin of error is getting slimmer with every loss.
The eight teams that qualified:
- Sentinels
- Immortals
- Luminosity Gaming
- XSET
- 100 Thieves
- FaZe Clan
- Gen.G Esports
- Team Envy
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