Who Can Reign Supreme At First Strike Europe?

G2 Esports, Team Liquid, and FunPlus Phoenix are once again in the running for a VALORANT trophy. A bunch of dangerous opponents will try to keep them at bay. Until now, this hasn’t exactly worked out great – but this time around, things are  lot different.

For one, these new teams should really not be underestimated. In the place of the usual suspects like the Ninjas in Pyjamas, new rosters have qualified for the biggest VALORANT event ever. Teams such as BIG, NiP, or Giants didn’t even manage to qualify – this is how strong these new players actually are! But one big question remains unanswered: Do they pack enough talent to compete with G2 Esports?

G2 – THE EUROPEAN SUPERTEAM

Because that is the really story line here. So far, Oscar “mixwell” Cañellas and his colleagues have won every single official VALORANT event they attended. At their most recent events, Liquid and FPX were the ones who tried to dethrone them. However, they have been unsuccessful until now and mostly tried to compete against each other for second place.

So for the teams who are new to the higher echelons of VALORANT, this already poses an enormous challenge. Their only real advantage is their being relatively new to the scene. Should G2 Esports underestimate them, players like Christian “loWel” Garcia Antoran or Vincent “Happy” Schopenhauer could use this to score their first upset. On top of that, G2 only have scarce material with which to prepare for their newest challengers. In contrast to this, they have held (and won) dozens of matches against the Ninjas in Pyjamas and know exactly how to counter them.

Nonetheless, teams like Orgless or Heretics will have to get past the individuals on FPX, Liquid and G2 first, if they really want to stand a chance at making the winners’ podium – let alone first place.

THE UNDERDOGS’ OPPORTUNITIES

The biggest upside for those teams is the tournament format. One of the reasons why the old Top 3 regularly attained these placements is Double Elimination brackets. While there definitely was a potential for upsets, no team ever had to exit after one match loss.

Here at First Strike, however, things are a lot different. There is no Group Stage and a Single Elimination bracket goes all the way to the Grand Finals. So if FunPlus Phoenix, who have not played any official matches in quite a while, get upset by nolpenki, they already exit the tournament in the Quarter Finals. The same holds true for G2 Esports and Liquid, who are also going up against dangerous opponents in the form of Orgless and Heretics, respectively.

Everywhere in these rosters, former Counter-Strike talent is biding its time. Players like loWel or Happy, but also Žygimantas “nukkye” Chmieliauskas and Daniil “pipsoN” Meshcheryakov, can put up enormous individual performances thanks to their professional experience. This exact characteristic has carried them through the Qualifiers in the first place. So it would be naive to just dismiss them and predict the dominance of the old guard.

DOES G2’S DEFEAT PLAY A ROLE?

In the earliest First Strike Qualifier, G2 Esports suddenly exited on the last leg of the journey. They lost a Play-Ins match to Guild Esports, who surprisingly made their way to the Qualifier playoffs. Shortly afterwards, however, it turned out that they had utilized a bug exploit. The team surrounding Yacine “Yacine” Laghmari was later disqualified and had to fight through the second Qualifier, to no success.

So how much should we really take from this? On one side, Guild Esports were massively helped by an illegal exploit, but on the other side G2 revealed some issues within their gameplay. It really says a lot when mixwell first stated that the reason for their loss was on him and on the side of G2 Esports in general. So not everything is perfect on the G2 camp, but still they have won basically every relevant match, provided they were facing fair opponents. So they still stand a huge chance to keep their streak alive with this First Strike event.

On Thursday, the event commences with the Opening Match between Team Liquid and Team Heretics. Following that up is the clash between Orgless and G2 Esports. Should both favorites manage to win their matches, Liquid and G2 will already face off in the Semi Finals.