First Strike NA, who took the biggest L?
After what was probably the most hyped VALORANT tournament to date, which concluded with 100 Thieves lifting the inaugural major, fans were excited by the high-quality entertainment that was provided by the players. However, for some fans, their team’s performances were less than stellar and left a lot to be desired.
Envy fail to replicate their success
After qualifying first in the Nerd Street Gamers qualifier, many people in the VALORANT community expected them to be able to replicate this performance at the main event and become the first major winners. Following the comfortable win against Immortals in the quarter-finals, it seemed that the team was well on track to prove people right and solidify themselves as the best team in the game. However, the hopes of a repeat performance all came crumbling down in a game that many expected to be a coinflip series against TSM, although once the teams were on the server, it was anything but a close series. TSM wiped the floor with Envy, winning 13-7 on Ascent, followed by a comfortable 13-5 win on Envy’s map pick of Split. This was without a doubt a disappointment for many fans, expecting a close and entertaining match up and instead being treated to a one-sided blowout.
Unfortunately for Envy, the two players that they picked up in order to be able to handle the firepower of teams like TSM, Austin “Crashies” Roberts and Victor “food” Wong both underperformed compared to their usual level which left the team unable to compete with the slaying of TSM. With food finishing with a 0.55 K/D and Crashies an even lower 0.53 K/D over the series, it can come as no surprise as to how the team failed to win a series with two of their stars falling far below their high standards.
However, as much as Envy may have underperformed in the match, credit cannot be taken away from TSM, who played lights out from start to finish and playing in that form would’ve been near impossible to beat for any team, with all players finishing with a minimum 1.13 K/D and star player Yassine “Subroza” Taoufik dropping an absurd 1.7 K/D and 299 ACS over the series.
Click to enlargeFaZe Clan fall at the first hurdle
After impressing during the UMG tournament closed qualifier for the First Strike event, FaZe were the only team to even come close to TSM, losing 3-1 in the finals. They also managed to beat T1, Andbox, NRG Esports, and Gen.G during their run to the First Strike event. This gave many Fans hope that FaZe may have finally turned a corner and be able to live up to the ability that the players have all shown in other esports titles, such as Overwatch. Combining this with the fact that Sentinels, their quarter-finals opponents, were playing without two weeks of practice leading up to the event due to the unfortunate passing of Shahzeeb “ShahZaM” Khan’s father prior to the tournament. This led many people to believe that FaZe may have come into the match with strats to be able to counter Sentinels due to their lack of practice.
When it came to the match though, it appears that none of the preparation the team put into the game mattered as Sentinels dealt with the game easily, and won the game 2-0, winning 13-8 and 13-5 on Bind and Split respectively. As well as this, FaZe player Shane “Rawkus” Flaherty played possibly one of the worst individual performances in competitive VALORANT so far, dropping five kills over the course of two maps.
Unfortunately, at this level of competition, it will be extremely difficult for a team to be able to win a series with a player underperforming to such an extent. Especially against a team at the calibre of Sentinels, who have been widely considered at least a top-three team in North America since basically the beginning of the game.
Click to enlargeRenegades provide no match for the competition
In what was probably the most one-sided match of the tournament, Renegades found themselves on the receiving end of a masterclass performance from TSM. Whilst this match was expected to be a win for TSM, given their previous results in the game, to lose by such a wide margin is certainly a disappointment for the Renegades team. Only achieving six rounds from two maps in a tournament which was supposed to be the top eight team in NA is definitely a massive failure.
Although, given the form that TSM was in combined with the odds already being heavily against Renegades, this loss can definitely be excused given the expectations going into the tournament for the team, given they were expected to lose in the quarter-finals anyway.
Overall, for the most part, the results were expected and the teams on this list will have plenty of time to improve moving forward, and compete alongside teams like 100 Thieves and TSM to be the winners of the next official VALORANT major tournament.
