This past weekend we saw the best teams in North America battle it all out on Riot’s newest tactical FPS game, Valorant. We’ve seen quite a couple of events in North America so we already had an idea on what the region has to offer and which teams had the highest chances of winning. Yesterday, TSM came out as winners and here is how they did it.
Final Winnings + Standings:
- 1st – $25,000 – Team SoloMid
- 2nd – $15,000 – T1
- 3rd – $5,000 – Immortals
- 4th – $5,000 – FaZe Clan
- 5th-6th – 100 Thieves
- 5th-6th – Sentinels
- 7th-8th – together we are terrific
- 7th-8th – Gen.G Esports
- 9th-12th – Cloud9
- 9th-12th – Spot Up
- 9th-12th – Code7
- 9th-12th – Mixup
- 13th-16th – Prospects
- 13th-16th – Charlotte Phoenix
- 13th-16th – Team Ninja
- 13th-16th – Echo 8
How did they do it?
TSM were placed in group B for the group stage, and they managed to end groups with a 3-0 score versus teams like Immortals, Spot Up and Charlotte Phoenix. Pretty solid teams however nowhere near the TSM squad in terms of skill and experience.
With the clean sweep in the group stage TSM advanced to the upper bracket quarterfinals where they would play versus “together we are terrific” (FNS’ team). TSM come out as winners, with a 2-1 score in their series, and then advance to the upper bracket semifinals where they face off FaZe Clan’s newest Valorant roster.
FaZe were strong, but not strong enough, TSM won the series 2-0 and progressed through the Upper Bracket Final where they would meet their toughest challenge yet, T1. After an intense best of 3, TSM clutch it out on the map Split and win the UB Finals 2-1. This meant that T1 will have to drop down to the Lower bracket Final and win a best of 1 versus Immortals.T1 won 13-10 versus Immortals on Split, and progressed through the Grand Final where they would have to rematch TSM.
The Finals
TSM already had an automatic map win due to them passing to the Grand Finals without dropping to the lower bracket, so this alone was already a huge advantage for them, coming into the Grand Finals. The first map to be played was Haven, which TSM won with a dominant 12-4 score. Then came Ascent, which T1 gave a harder time on, however TSM were stronger this time round, and were crowned champions of the T1 x Nerd Street Gamers Showdown, The first ever North American Ignition Series event.
Here are some words from TSM Wardell, in an interview after the finals:
Where do we go from here?
Teams in North America are still developing, and organizations are still in progress of signing players so having teams like TSM and T1 winning most of the NA events does not mean it will always be like this. These teams had been formed during the closed beta period, which meant that they had more experience together as a team, resulting in them playing much better as a core. That being said, we cannot wait for the announcement of another signing into this already amazing esport, and we can’t wait to see them playing in more events, very soon.