Tag: LOUD

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.

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.

KRU Stay UNDEFEATED in VCT Americas After 2-0 LOUD

Lionel Messi’s Co-Owned VALORANT team, KRU Esports, has retained their unbeaten record. They are the only team in the world of VCT that has remained unbeaten going into week 5 of VCT, with VCT China still awaiting their Week 4 of games.

KRU Esports went 0-9 in their regular season last year in VCT with their only highlights coming in their Last Chance Qualifier and eventually making it to VCT Champions. They seem to be the opposite of last years peformance after going 4-0 in regular season matches taking down LOUD in their superweek. The LATAM side have now made the Brazilian Giants go to 0-3.

Stats Courtesy of vlr.gg

The introduction of heat into the KRU side has put them onto the right track with their Kick-Off performance not up to scratch. However, they were without heat, after their poor performance in kick-off, they added the ex-MIBR player heat into their roster and have been on fire since.

Last year, heat was the duelist player for MIBR and now on KRU he has become the initiator player and seems to be thriving alongside his teammate, keznit who is still one of the top duelists in VCT Americas.

Similar to TenZ, ZmjjKK and Sayf, the duelist players from 2023 have now moved onto a more flexible role and moved off of duelist to allow other players to take up that role and take their team to another level.

KRU are now set to play their 2 remaining games against 100Thieves and Leviatan, where they are expected to make playoffs anyway, they are looking towards a 6-0 record for their split looking towards Masters Shanghai.

Lionel Messi, who became co-owners of KRU alongside Sergio Aguero, late last year, posted for their win on Instagram after they retained their unbeaten record and now their fanbase is growing even more with the addition of two SUPERSTAR footballers.

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.

LOUD Eliminate FPX From Masters Madrid

After a disappointing early loss to Gen.G, LOUD bounced back against China’s second seed. A relatively quick 2-0 sent them into the decider round of the Swiss stage, one win away from playoffs.

LOUD completely dominated their map pick, converting Sunset 13-5 in a game that wasn’t even as close as the final score suggested. FunPlus Phoenix finally put up a fight on Breeze, led by a standout 25 kill performance from Autumn, but in the end, LOUD’s depth was too much to handle. A 13-11 score sent FPX packing.

Both teams brought Phoenix comps to Sunset, with quick picking Phoenix as his primary agent this year it seems. FPX compounded their uniqueness by adding in a Harbor and Chamber. Although their comp was very strong in the Chinese VCT, it has seen no success on the international stage at Madrid.

A pair of clutches against weaker buys kept FPX from getting demolished immediately, but LOUD cleanly accelerated past them. LOUD applied a lot of aggressive defensive pressure around the map which gave them a huge advantage against this fairly new roster.

LOUD held an 8-4 lead at the half and easily converted a 13-5 victory on their attack. Without a true sentinel, FPX were completely unable to stop LOUD from taking whatever map control they wanted.

In addition to calling a nearly flawless game, saadhak, the IGL of LOUD, closed Sunset with the most kills and fewest deaths in the server.

LOUD will go to face Edward Gaming, the other Chinese VCT side to appear at Masters Madrid. They will play an elimination game to see which team makes it to the playoffs alongside Sentinels and GenG to crown the Champion of the world at Masters Madrid.

GenG Takes Down LOUD in an Incredible 2-1 Win

The international Veterans, LOUD, put up a strong fight but the number 1 seed from APAC were too much for the Brazilians to handle with a 2-1 victory sending LOUD one game away from elimination.

Despite Less having the most frags across the three maps, he alone wasn’t enough to defeat GenG who seemed formidable in their play.

Stats Courtesy of vlr.gg

LOUD brought another Ascent comp to the table with Quick playing Yoru and finding no success against the GenG traditional comp on Ascent of Jett, Killjoy, KAY/0, Omen and Sova.

The first map, Icebox, went GenG’s way with a ridiculous clutch from Karon on his international debut against Less of all people. Less put up 27 frags on the Icebox but it wasn’t enough and a stick of the defuse was the end of Icebox.

The Breeze did go the way of LOUD, with TuyZ activating and dropping 22 frags with GenG’s Yoru comp not getting much use and only dropping 9 frags despite t3xture going 21/18 on the Jett and having some crazy entries. He was also confusing fans across the world by only using the phantom, which was confusing because of the natural long distance fights that will occur on a map like Breeze.

This game sends LOUD down to the 0-1 games potentially face FPX after they lost to KC earlier in the day. The draw for the following games is yet to happen since there are 2 more games today with Edward Gaming facing off against Paper Rex and Team Heretics facing off against Sentinels to find the next games in this Swiss system.

Sentinels Take Down LOUD to Become VCT Americas Kick-Off Champions

After 7 games in the Kick-off event, Sentinels are crowned the VCT Americas Champions with a 3-2 victory over LOUD.

They beat the team that knocked them down to a lower bracket run with an incredible 5 map series where their old ‘GOAT‘ of VALORANT, TenZ got the MVP with 84 frags across the 5 maps on the flex role playing Omen, KAY/0 and Yoru.

They won the tournament in astonishing fashion beating every single team put in front of them despite having heavy doubts amongst fans in NA. They beat the two so called ‘superteams’ that were poised to make it through by themselves knocking both NRG and Leviatan out of the tournament in pretty comfortable fashion.

Despite having a rocky start to the season going down 2-0 to LOUD in their first game, they bounced back and won all of their following games including the rematch against LOUD where they went 2-0 up in the first two maps but took it all the way to a dominant map 5 where they closed it out on Lotus 13-4.

Their Split still seems unbreakable with Sentinels destroying LOUD 13-3 which set up for a possible 3-0 but it wasn’t meant to be as they lost Icebox in a close 13-11 map with fans biting their nails to the close game that has occured.

After so much speculation and criticism, TenZ really showed up when it was most needed in their 2-1 victory over NRG to secure Madrid and now in the Grand Final where he managed a 1.21 rating on vlr.gg ahead of his teammate Zekken who has been frying all teams this Kick-Off.

pANcada Announces He Will Return To The Top Again

After a lacklustre season from Sentinels in VCT 2023, they are looking very strong coming into the new season after a win at the Afreeca TV League. The difference is, pANcada is on the bench.

The Brazilian ,who is known for his meme ‘why pANcada doesn’t miss!?’ has has a less than successful time in North America after leaving LOUD in 2023.

After winning Champions and becoming the best team in the world over optic in Champions 2022, the roster broke apart with Sacy and pANcada leaving to form a supposed NA super team Sentinels.

Despite having this super team with TenZ as the focal point, Sentinels struggled to perform and make any international LANs and the only one they got to was Lock-in where they got first rounded against the eventual champions FNATIC.

In a recent tweet from the Brazilian Superstar, he subtweets the scene by saying ‘I went far without kissing anyone’s ass! I will return to the top again in the same way, take note.’

With his spot at Sentinels looking unlikely to return, his best chance is to wait out until his specialist skills are needed unless another team in VCT calls for his name given his history and success in VALORANT.