VALORANT Champions Day 1 recap – ‘Vanity, don’t let go!’

Day one of VALORANT Champions on Wednesday kicked off the group stage with all four teams from Group D battling it out to see who would take the advantage early. In between those matches was also the first match of Group C between Team Vikings and Crazy Raccoon.

VALORANT Champions Match 1: Vision Strikers vs. FULL SENSE

Despite some delays early on the first match of the day, Vision Strikers came out the gate swinging in their first matchup of Champions. Up against FULL SENSE, the qualified team from the APAC Last Chance Qualifier, Vision Strikers had their eyes set on taking the advantage in their group as soon as possible. Both Haven and Breeze were back-to-back stomps in favor of the South Koreans. Match MVP: Yu “BuZz” Byung-chul – Vision Strikers’ eighteen-year-old superstar showed up during day one as Jett. In the two maps BuZz had an outstanding KD of 1.9 with 40 kills, 21 deaths and seven assists.

Match 2: Crazy Raccoon vs. Team Vikings

The second sweep of the day came from the side of Team Vikings versus Crazy Raccoon. In what some might say is a fight for the bottom, Team Vikings came out on top with the victory over Crazy Raccoon. Both teams qualified for Champions through Circuit Points in their own leagues. Icebox and Haven were where the two teams duked it out. Team Vikings came out on top with a 13-9 score line on Icebox and a 13-8 score line on Haven. Match MVP: Gustavo “Sacy” Rossi – Team Vikings’ controller wizard held it down for his team across both maps. He closed the series with a 1.7 KD with 48 kills, 28 deaths and 20 assists.

Match 3: Cloud9 vs. Fnatic

In the first matchup of North America against EMEA, Europe reigned supreme. Fans had not seen Fnatic perform on the international stage since Masters: Reykjavík back in May. With no recent knowledge of the team’s playstyle, they were an unknown coming into their match against a hot Cloud9. In typical EMEA vs NA fashion, the two teams made it as interesting as possible by going to double overtime on the third map of the series.

🚢🎻 #VALORANTChampions pic.twitter.com/fEFdb24OzB

— Upcomer (@Upcomer) December 1, 2021

Match MVP:  Nikita “Derke” Sirmitev – The Finnish player for Fnatic showed that he is still one of the best Jett players in the world. After dropping 30 kills alone on Icebox, Derke finished series one with a 1.37 KD with 74 kills overall.