Aspas Breaks Kill Record With 47 Kills To Upset Sentinels

Star player Erick “aspas” Santos took matters into his own hands, displaying one of the greatest professional Valorant performances to date. He put his team on his back to defeat Sentinels, the current best team in the world. 

The State Of Leviatan

Aspas built his Valorant career playing for LOUD, where he put himself on the map as one of the best Duelists in the world. Despite finding success under the leadership of Saadhak, aspas decided to transfer to Leviatan in hopes of building the new Juggernaut. 

With all the resources intact, the new Leviatan roster was considered the greatest Americas roster on paper. However, the team failed to meet expectations in its debut tournament, VCT Americas Kickoff. 

Leviatan also lost their opening match in the current Champions Tour: Americas Stage 1 against Cloud9, a significantly weaker team. In that match, aspas dropped a 1.41 rating, but the team could not contribute enough for a victory.

Redemption Match Against Sentinels

The Sentinels were responsible for eliminating Leviatan in the VCT Americas Kickoff. TenZ and company proceeded to win the entire Kickoff event, and VCT Masters Madrid to become world champions. Coming into the match, the Sentinels had become heavy favorites against the Leviatan team, but aspas had something to say. 

New Kill Record On Lotus

The first map in the series turned out to be one of the greatest games in professional Valorant history. Leviatan immediately started the match, guns blazing, taking a fast 9-1 lead on their offense. At this point, aspas had already posted a KDA of 13/3/1, getting frag after frag. However, Sentinels could collect scraps and somewhat salvage the half, 9-3. 

The Sentinels claimed the first three rounds of the second half, but Leviatan won the two following rounds to put them right in front of the finish line, 11-6. After Round 17, the Brazilian Duelist was 23/7/1. Despite him dropping 30 kills in regulation, the Sentinels could make a comeback to force the 12-12. What ensued were six overtimes.

Aspas began to show what he was capable of, getting 17 kills in 12 rounds of overtime to clinch the map win against the Sentinels. He ended the map 47/19/6, a KDR of 2.47, and most importantly, a rating of 1.80. This amount of kills in a single map has broken the previous record of 42, held by ZETA Division’s Yuma “Dep” Hashimoto.

With aspas breaking the kill record today, here is the top 10 list for most kills in a map (in the partnership era) | @INSTALOCKnet pic.twitter.com/qVpyOt5ZvV

— willminder (@willminder) April 14, 2024

Leviatan Wins Another Nail-biter On Icebox

A first map like that placed high hopes on the second to deliver as well, and it did. On a different agent, Jett, aspas continued his demonic performance on the first half of Icebox. With four opening kills, the 20-year-old helped Leviatan win the first half 7-5. 

Being the recent champions, the Sentinels wouldn’t go down that easy. Zekken attempted to replicate the opposing Jett’s performance, getting three kills on the pistol round to help Sentinels take the lead at 8-7. In Round 20, C0M reminded us why he is considered one of the best recon players in the world, getting three kills with his Hunter’s Fury. 

Both teams started exchanging rounds, bringing the score to 11-11. C0M once again stepped up in the crucial 23rd round, getting a triple kill to bring Leviatan to match point. In the final round of play, aspas, the man who started it all, got the last kill to win the map and series 2-0.

Community Reactions

The main highlight of the day was aspas breaking the kill record with 47 kills. The Brazilian received the title of best Duelist in the world, but has not found much success in recent times. It’s great to see him back, showing the world what he’s capable of. 

i just had a terrible nightmare where aspas dropped 47 kills on us in one map

— curry // rahul (@currydtx) April 14, 2024

Despite all the attention deservedly going to his teammate, C0M also regained recognition for his impeccable Sova performance on Icebox, redeeming himself after failing to replicate his success while on Evil Geniuses. His dad tweeted that he had been putting extra effort into returning to form, and is happy that it paid off. 

This is what redemption looks like. He put in sooo much work this week and the team is made up of great group of guys wanting the same things…Aspas working around team play is so different. I didn’t think he could play any better but he keeps amazing me. So F’ing happy right… pic.twitter.com/q5QYQow1V9

— PapaC0M (@PapaC0M) April 14, 2024

Header: Leviatan