Tag: E Sports

LOUD BENCH Less After Bombing Out Of VCT Play-Offs

After missing their first Major tournament in the organisations history, LOUD have reportedly benched arguably their best player, Less, shortly after losing 2-0 against 100 Thieves.

After bombing out of the VCT Americas Stage 1 play-offs, a tweet was released by a very reliable and credible Brazilian VALORANT journalist, @Noynvlr on X.

The tweet above states-

@loud_less MUST BE MOVED TO THE BENCH OF @LOUDgg

One of the greatest Brazilian players of all time may have his days in the organization numbered.

Most likely, the player will end up being moved to the team’s bench.

At the moment,@raafawp , from @HeroBase , is the favorite to assume its role in the next stage.

The world champion winning Sentinel player, Less has recieved praise from many players across the VALORANT community on his style of play and his consistent performance over the last three years.

One in particular that springs to mind is before the matchup against Evil Geniuses in VCT Champions Los Angeles last year, Ethan, went on stream to state that he spent days figuring out how to kill Less, as if you crouched against him, you would instantly die.

However, the decision behind the reported benching is not due to performance as many have agreed that Less has been the best player for LOUD this split, still occupying the Sentinel role.

It seems to be due to financial reasons with the player being reportedly benched not due to personal or performance reasons.

There has been no official response from LOUD or Less as of yet, with only a tweet coming from Less saying:

oi?????????

With the reported benching of Less, only Saadhak remains from their 2022 VCT Champions winning side with all other players leaving the organisation to play alongside American players in Sentinels and the LATAM side Leviatan.

NRG AND Sentinels Are OUT Of Masters Shanghai After Shocking Stage 1 Performances

The Masters Madrid winners and arguably the best team in the world, Sentinels, are out of contention for Masters Shanghai after failing to qualify for the play-offs in VCT Americas.

Dropping games to Evil Geniuses, Leviatan and LOUD mean that they were mathematically eliminated from play-offs as only the top three teams from their group made it through with G2 making it above them in round differential by just two rounds.

However, another team that has let the world down, is NRG. They go out of play-offs after not even qualifying for one international event so far after losing to Sentinels in VCT Americas kick-off and now bombing out of Stage 1 despite having, on paper, the best roster in the world, with the additions of Demon1 and Ethan who were from the world champions winning side Evil Geniuses and Demon1 being the most sought after player in the world.

Despite being two of the best players from that squad of 5 from last year, they were unable to defeat any of their former team mates this year which included an utterly embarrassing defeat to Leviatan where they only managed a total of 8 rounds across the two maps. Leviatan is now home to c0m who won the Champions title alongside Demon1 and Ethan.

On paper, Sentinels and NRG should have had near to no problems making it through to play offs with the compeition in their group being the 2023 worst team in Americas, KRU and the ”tier 2” Cloud9, who both majorly over performed and went 5-1 in their series whilst SEN and NRG went 3-3 shocking the world.

VCT Americas Kick-off start tonight with Cloud9 playing G2 Esports looking to knock each other out of play-offs in this one and done game.

Another knockout game could see LOUD dropping out of Master Shanghai contention with a tough game against 100Theives who already look a lot better than their kick-off form with Champions winning IGL, Boostio, transforming this roster after putting Cryo, onto the smokes role and allowing Asuna to take up the Raze as he used to do back in 2021.

These games will decide who will go on to face off against KRU Esports and Leviatan with both of those teams looking on form hoping for a spot in Masters Shanghai to Join Paper Rex, T1, GenG from the APAC side with the other regions yet to play off.

LOUD Shatter Sentinels Chances of Masters Shanghai

Sentinels’ chances of Masters Shangai is now up in flames with LOUD getting their first win of the split against the current champions.

Sentinels going down to LOUD now means that their chance of their qualification mainly lands into the hands of other teams losing with them needing NRG and G2 to lose BOTH of their games for Sentinels to make it to play-offs.

Despite LOUD not having a win all split after going down to Leviatan, Cloud9 and KRU, they turned up and played Sentinels down to a level that just isn’t acceptable in SEN fans eyes.

SEN now go on to face off against FURIA with the only game they have remaining is set to be played this weekend in the final week of Split 1 for VCT Americas.

LOUD’s chances for playoffs are very alive due to their group being the poorest group of all VCT with two teams going 0-4 and the final spot being contested between two other teams whilst Leviatan takes the lead for the group after taking down NRG and Sentinels.

Stats Courtesy of vlr.gg

After an un-characteristically bad performance from Zellsis he went 16 kills across the two maps and Sacy was the only player on Sentinels to keep his frags consistent.

On the other side, cauanzin had a strong return to form after being the bottom frag of the side for the first 3 matches, he turned up and dropped 41 kills on Sentinels and looked to be on a revenge tour of the remaining matches in the split.

Evil Geniuses SHOCK Masters Champions in VCT Americas

Sentinels are now under huge pressure with a 2-1 loss to Evil Geniuses give them their second loss of the split making their play-off chances slim after a dominant kick-off tournament and then taking the Masters Madrid trophy back home.

After a ridculous 9-3 comeback on Lotus, Sentinels took the map and went up 10-2 on Bind with most fans saying it was just another standard win for SEN City. However, it wasn’t meant to be with a shocking comeback from Evil Geniuses took them to map 3.

Map 3 was Sunset where it was very back and forth between the rounds and they were extremely shared with the two most recent international winners.

Stats Courtesy of vlr.gg

With jawgemo coming back to Champions form on the Raze, he took over the first map which ended up going in the favour of Sentinels despite dropping 23 kills in the first half. He then had a steadily great performance across the next three maps where he was consistently great.

After going down 2-0 to Leviatan, SEN now go down 2-1 to Evil Geniuses who have shown that it wasn’t a fluke last year with the remaining Potter and jawgemo still creating greatness with a new roster.

To make play-offs comfortably now, Sentinels need to take down LOUD and FURIA whilst they need the other teams in their group to have poor games for the remainder of this split.

Sentinels next game is against a poor LOUD side who are currently sat 0-3 in their group despite being one of only two teams that made it to Masters Madrid with the trophy eventually coming back to Americas but to Sentinels rather than LOUD.

Leviatan DOMINATE NRG During Superweek

The ‘Super Team’ of VCT Americas, NRG, got humbled against Leviatan, after hyping up the team and their chances of winning it all, NRG are looking below par of what they are used to indivdually. Demon1 no longer is showing the firepower that he had last year on Evil Geniuses despite now being the centre of attention on the squad.

Leviatan, a super team in their own right, absolutely dominated NRG last night with NRG only allowed to take 8 rounds from 2 maps, an even more impressive and overwhelming victory than Sentinels against MIBR on Saturday. NRG having only played teams that you could call ‘not contenders’ and when they play world class teams they seem to crumble against Sentinels and now Leviatan.

Stats Courtesy of vlr.gg

NRG really had a shocking performance against the LATAM giants who just came off the back of a 2-0 win over Sentinels aswell.

Demon1, who was the MVP of VCT Champions 2023, dropped 13 kills across the two maps instead of dominating like he did last year. aspas, who has been called the GOAT of Valorant, dropped 34 kills and looked unbothered that he was striking down the MVP of Champions 2023.

NRG have started to create a reputation for themselves for being toxic and super confident in themselves despite not having the results to back it up. Victor, before the game said that it was going to be easy, and it ended up being somewhat the opposite and it seemed that Leviatan took control of map control, rotations and even NRG’s aim seemed off during the matchup.

Before the matchup, Demon1, said in an interview that

”I will take care of aspas”

Those words came back to bite him as the ended the match with 2 first kills and 15 first deaths across the two maps.

NRG now look ahead to their next game against MIBR which should be an easy game, and Leviatan look ahead to G2 Esports which seems straight forward after the results they got against Sentinels and NRG over the past 2 weeks.

Cloud9 SHOCK LOUD With 2-1 Victory

Cloud9 now go 3-0 in Stage 1 of VCT Americas after shocking the Brazilian giants, LOUD, 2-1 in a banger of a match between the two sides that got 1st and 2nd place in VCT Americas League last season.

Cloud9 but up an admirable fight on Bind but eventually lost the map 13-11 to LOUD but bounced back only letting LOUD have 13 rounds across the next two maps. Cloud9 took Icebox 13-4 and then Lotus 13-9 with OXY topping the charts and dominating the server with 63 frags.

Stats Courtesy of vlr.gg

After comments at the beginning of the year from Demon1, saying that OXY is the worst duelist in Americas, he seemed to have taken that in and is proving the world Champion duelist wrong with multiple aces already in the opening stage of VCT Americas.

After spending the first year of franchising on G2 Esports in Tier 2 of VALORANT, he got his chance in the top tier of VALORANT with Cloud9 picking him up and sticking by him through their 3 roster changes that they have made so far this stage.

That proved to be the right decision with OXY showing Demon1 and other people who have doubted him that he is here to create waves throughout the VALORANT world and hopefully make it to an international LAN through this with Shanghai.

Cloud9 now go on to face 100 Thieves later on tonight with hopes of them going 4-0 in the regular season with LOUD being shocked and going 0-2 in this part of the season with their hopes of play-offs looking bleak already despite being one of the two sides to make it to Masters Madrid alongside the winners, Sentinels.

Sentinels Take Down MIBR in Comfortable 2-0 Fashion

Sentinels kick-off the VCT Americas Superweek with a well furnished 2-0 victory over MIBR with Zekken taking the MVP of the series grabbing himself 40 kills across the two maps.

It was just smooth sailing for the Masters Madrid winners only allowing the Brazilian side to get 10 rounds across the two maps with Lotus going 13-3 in favour of Sentinels and then Bind going 13-7 the way of Sentinels with a 9-3 first half.

Stats Courtesy of vlr.gg

Coming off of a loss against Leviatan, where aspas dropped 68 kills across the two maps, Sentinels needed to get back to Championship form which they proved that they will and did against this poor MIBR side. Their new Bind comp switching TenZ off of Yoru and onto the Gekko has proved to be something that has worked incredibly in their favour with Zekkens, Raze being one of the best in the world, that alone is enough firepower to send Sentinels ahead of the competition.

Sentinels now look ahead to Evil Geniuses on Tuesday where they will hope to go 3-1 in games in the regular season and make it to the playoffs from the alpha group despite KRU going 3-0 at the moment.

Sentinels did look slightly different in their playstyle in that TenZ picked up the Outlaw and the Operator much more often allowing him to take long range fights and win them out much more comfortably despite how good his rifling has been this season.

He recently said on stream –

”Other than aspas, America doesnt really have a good AWPer”

He then proceeds to pick up the AWP and take as many fights as he could with it, one being a clutch on Bind whilst AWPing on Gekko. First made popular by EDG’s ZMjjKK.

Aspas Obliterates Sentinels With 47 Kills on Lotus

Week 2 of VCT Americas kicked off on Friday with the first game between 100T vs G2 and then the game that was on everyones minds, SEN vs LEV and it did not disappoint with a 2-0 victory to LEV taking down the Masters Madrid winners.

Despite it being a 2-0, the first map on Lotus, was 19-17 with Aspas breaking the kill record in VCT by dropping 47 kills on the Raze. He has put his name in the record books once again with his outstanding performance against the most in form team in the world. With this performance he beats out ZETA Dep’s record of 42 by 5 kills and he does it in a game where he had to perform to the best of his abilities to win the game.

The game came off the back of SEN beating 100T 2-0 and LEV losing to Cloud9 2-1 with the momentum going the favour of Sentinels. Despite this, it was a rare off-day for Zekken who normally tops the server with kills and it was aspas who stole the show going +34 in the two maps.

With aspas’ 47 kill map on Lotus, they went into Icebox hoping to take the game 2-0 and that is what they did. With Sentinels being known that their ‘jett‘ maps aren’t their strongest as Zekkens, Raze is top 3 in the world however his Jett has some work to do. With Icebox being a Jett map, Sentinels eventually ended up losing the map 13-11 leaving their first loss of VCT Americas Stage 1 starting against Leviatan who have got their first win against Sentinels.

It should also be noted that aspas’s 47 kill map on Lotus had more kills than ANY other player in the server across the two maps. kiNgg on LEV came close with 46 and Zekken with 41 but aspas dropping more on just one map tells the story on how impressive he was in this series and even in the series against Cloud9 he topped the server despite losing the game.

SEN go onto to face off against MIBR on Saturday 20th April at 10pm BST, with MIBR losing their opening game against KRU 2-0 where Sentinels will hope to get a win back and go on to gain their points for Masters Shanghai. Whereas Leviatan will go on to face the inform NRG who are coming off the back of a 2-0 win over FURIA.

Runi Returns to Cloud9 Alongside moose To Round Out Roster

After Cloud9 announced the departures of wippie and jakee, there were two spots left to fill on the roster. It has been decided that the return of Runi to the roster will be implemented and Moose will make his VCT debut for the NA side.

Runi, was dropped from the roster for the start of the 2024 VCT season due to unknown reasons, however it seems that it was short lived with himself returning to a completely different roster where it is assumed that he will not be IGL’ing the roster since Vanity remains despite being the IGL last year which got them to second place in VCT Americas.

In an X video (seen above), Cloud9 announce their roster for Split 1 of VCT Americas where they are hoping for similar success to last year with a different roster only having Xeppaa and Runi remain from their top 2 run.

There were rumours of pANcada joining the team or possibly Monyet, after both of the players have been moved to the bench on their respective superteams despite being very impressive technical players mechanically and vocally.

moose found himself on the short end of the stick in challengers NA last year after going out to G2 Esports and M80 who were the two finalists in the Ascension for VCT Americas this year. After this loss, he briefly moved to Turtle Troop, another Challengers team, before opting to join YFP Gaming. The newly-formed troupe of talent breezed through the open qualifiers and secured a spot at Challengers in 2024 before moose left the team for a spot in franchising with Cloud9.

Cloud9 is now:

  •  Anthony “vanity” Malaspina (IGL)
  •  Erick “Xeppaa” Bach (Flex)
  •  Dylan “runi” Cade (Initiator)
  •  Kaleb “moose” Jayne (Sentinel/ Smokes)
  •  Francis “OXY” Hoang (Duelist)
  •  Ian “Immi” Harding (Coach)
  •  Guglielmo “GUGLi” Carraro (Assistant coach)

Cloud9’s new roster will debut against Latin American rivals Leviatán in Week 1 of the Stage 1 Americas League on April 6th streamed on YouTube and Twitch with watch parties coming from streamers such as Tarik, s0m and FNS.

Jinggg Makes Shock Return To Paper Rex Starting Roster

The MVP of Paper Rex’s run in VCT 2023, has made a shock announcement saying that he will return to the Paper Rex starting lineup after retiring last year due to mandatory military service.

In a tweet released by @pprxteam on X, they announce that due to ‘medical reasons’ Jinggg has been exempt from Military service and is allowed to return to professional play and will return to the starting lineup for Split 1 of VCT Pacific replacing Monyet after a semi-final run at Masters Madrid.

On the 6th of October 2023, Jinggg was placed on the reserve roster for Paper Rex with the organization expecting him to serve is military service for 2 years and then possibly return to the scene after its completion.

However, that downside to the team ended early with a surprise to fans across the world in his return to professional VALORANT coming in the following weeks. It is expected that he will remain on the roster for the rest of the season with Monyet going to the bench and willing to step in if needed for any reason.

The thought is that Jinggg will go back to Raze and the team will retain their 2023 roster that got them second at Champions in LA and 3rd at Masters Tokyo. Fans were making the comparison between Monyet and Jinggg and it is tough to compare the two, as for over a year, Jinggg has been known as the best Raze player in the world and with the meta being all around Raze players such as Zekken, Aspas and t3xture, Jinggg is sure to find success with his return to VCT after just 6 months of retirement.