This VALORANT team has perfected pistol rounds
One team at VALORANT Masters Tokyo 2023 has cracked the code to pistol rounds and is statistically dominating the competition.
19th Jun 2023 14:50
Riot Games
This VALORANT team has perfected pistol rounds
One team at VALORANT Masters Tokyo 2023 has cracked the code to pistol rounds and is statistically dominating the competition.
19th Jun 2023 14:50
Riot Games
VALORANT Champions Tour Masters Tokyo 2023 is still running full steam ahead and every day its competitors are breaking new paradigms rarely seen before in the young esport.
Over the tournament, one team has shown a pattern around pistol rounds rarely seen before and its anecdotes couldn't look sweeter.
Not only is Evil Geniuses (EG) around Head Coach Christine "potter" Chi on a darkhorse run and locked in for top 3 performance, their strength during pistol rounds beggars belief.
Otherworldly pistols and then some
As VALORANT stats account @willminder pointed out on Twitter using rib.gg’s data, EG's pistol rounds are currently sitting at 81% win rate.
Pistol rounds are hugely important as the economic advantage gained through winning it secures the team an SMG advantage in the second round, which most often converts into a win.
However, usually in the third round (the so-called bonus round), the team who won the first two rounds be at a firepower disadvantage as the losing team now should have enough resources to gear up with rifles.
Even more impressively, EG has been the team with the highest bonus round win rate at 69%, a round that most professional VALORANT teams ought to lose.
According to willminder, almost half of EG's maps start with a 4-0 lead for them which has been an engine to their success.
Indeed, the very thing happened during their first map against Team Liquid on Fracture in the Upper Bracket Semifinals as the Americans went up 4-0 and rolled that advantage to a dominant 13-2 victory.
Not just a numbers treat
While numbers tell one side of the story, the eye test is its own special treat. On map 2, EG briefly looked like they would be lowering their pistol round win rate as Team Liquid gained a significant advantage in the first round on Haven, going up to a 4v2.
With only Kelden "Boostio" Pupello and Corbin "C0M" Lee alive, the chances of a pistol round victory look slim to none until the latter decided to take matters into his own hands.
Seeing his teammates fall on A short, C0M quickly rotates onto A site from long and tries to catch Team Liquid in the takeover of the bomb site. Armed with a Ghost, what follows is one of the coldest clips coming out of this tournament as C0M dispatches all four remaining members of TL in less than two seconds.
While EG couldn't convert the bonus round that time, this outstanding pistol performance still set the tone for the rest of the map as EG also won the second pistol round and rode these two an impressive 13-9 victory on the second map.
EG is now set to play European powerhouse and LOCK//IN winner Fnatic in the winner's bracket final on June 21st at 4 am BST.
About The Author
Sascha Heinisch
Sascha "Yiska" Heinisch is a Senior Esports Journalist at GGRecon. He's been creating content in esports for over 10 years, starting with Warcraft 3.