Expectations were certainly subverted at the first Open Qualifier after the regional Masters.
The North American Challengers 1 Open Qualifiers was projected to be an open and shut case with the top performers of NA Masters cruising by. The reality was anything but this, as only 3 out of 8 teams that competed in NA Masters managed to advance to the closed qualifiers.
Most notably the two NA Masters finalists, Sentinels and FaZe Clan, both dropped out at the final hurdle. Recently dropped from Andbox, Jake “POACH” Brumleve was recently picked up by Built By Gamers to fill their vacant 5th man spot. Working in tandem with Andbox mainstay Jaccob “Yay” Whiteaker, the tier 2 organization was able to unseat the kings and get their first shot at Challengers.
Similarly for FaZe, they fell 1-2 to Version1. The underdog in this story revealed their roster relatively recently, most notably picking up former Gen.G Cypher star Keven “PLAYER1” Champagne to join Anthony “Vanity” Malaspina’s squad. This roster proved to have greater depth than meets the eye however as Jordan “Zellsis” Montemurro, the secondary duelist for the team, truly stole the show with 62 total frags. Joining their fellow usurpers in the closed qualifiers, this early success bodes well for the new organization.
Cloud9 has historically struggled ever since the departure of Tyson “TenZ” Ngo, however advanced to their first VCT Closed Qualifier with an impressive showing in this tournament. Nathan “leaf” Orf and Michael “poiz” Possis played an outstanding role in this resurgence, but whether or not this can continue into a Challengers berth remains to be seen.
Quite adversely, 100 Thieves have always seemed to thrive in these open qualifier tournaments and once again managed to avoid an upset elimination with a flawless 8-0 run. 3 out of 5 of the 100 Thieves roster landed in the top 10 players of the tournament for overall rating, but we will have to see if they can maintain this level of performance when against more formidable opponents.
Also read:
- Looking ahead to VALORANT EU Stage 2 Challengers 1
- Yoru and Viper see buffs in patch 2.06
- Dignitas drop men’s roster
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