Acend and Liquid qualified for the semi-finals
Europe continues to dominate the Valorant Champions! Indeed, Acend and Team Liquid won the first two quarter finals of the first Valorant World Championship by a wide margin. They won against Team Secret and Cloud9 Blue respectively, without conceding a single map.
We told you yesterday that all four EMEA teams were still in the running and even seed 1 at the end of each group. Now, it could be that only European teams are left in the semi-finals.
Acend VS Team Secret
The first match was a confrontation between Acend and Team Secret. The first match started on Icebox, a map chosen by Team Secret. It did not work to their advantage, as Acend quickly took the lead by winning the first five rounds. Kiles was a key part of the victory in two of those rounds, making decisive double kills.
At side change, the Filipino players were still dominated, although they managed to win four rounds, sealing the score at 8-4 for their opponents. The rest of the match was generally in favour of the European team, who finally finished the map on a score of 13-8. BONECOLD, zeek and cNed did a great job here, managing to adapt perfectly to their enemies' game plan. For Team Secret, are noteworthy the beautiful quadrakill of BORKUM in round 15, and his triple kill in round 20.
The second match was played on Breeze, Acend's map of preference. Once again, the European players took the early lead, quickly taking the score to 5-0. At this point, Team Secret asked for a timeout so they could talk to Gibo, their coach. The time spent talking to Gibo proved beneficial, as the players won the next two rounds, thanks in part to DubsteP's aggressive play.
At half time, the score was the same as the first game: 8-4. The rest of the game was more contested by Team Secret as they were determined to play a third game. This was not enough, however, and despite a masterful quadrakill from Dispenser in round 15, Acend won the map by a score of 13-6. .This victory put an end to the match, which ended on a score of 2-0. Once again, the zeek/cNed duo worked wonders in this match and, if it was possible to elect two MVPs, it would probably be them.
This game went pretty well for us. We didn't expect an easy game or anything. Every team here is very good. Team Secret played some good Valorant.
starxo – Acend player
Team Liquid VS Cloud9 Blue
The second half of the evening saw an explosive and close match between Team Liquid and Cloud9 Blue. As the last American team left in the competition, Cloud9 had a lot of pressure of their shoulders and gave everything they had to try to win this match. The match started on Bind, a map that worked well for Liquid a few days ago when they met Sentinels.
It was Leaf, Cloud9's star player, who opened the score by giving his teammates the point with a superb ace ! He followed up with a quadrakill in the second round, putting on a great show of strength. However, this was not enough to impress Team Liquid, who won the next four rounds. After a very close first part of the match, the score was 6-6.
After half time, ScreaM woke up to face Leaf, in an explosive duel. Both players were simply spectacular and were clearly the two stars of the match. We can also note theincredible quadrakill of L1NK in round 22. The next round sealed the game on a score of 13-10 in favour of Team Liquid.
Both teams then switched on Ascent to play their second game. Once again, Leaf opened the game quickly with a very aggressive and enterprising gameplay. Unlike the previous map, this was a much tighter start of the game and we saw Jamppi and Leaf both making a quadrakill in round 3.
At side change, Cloud9 was dominating with a score of 7-5. But Team Liquid took the lead again, and the score went to 12-8 in their favour. Although the American team managed to win three more rounds after that, ScreaM eventually got the better of them, and the Europeans finished the match 13-11. Having already won two games, the victory on this map meant the end of the BO and another victory for an EMEA team!
Team Liquid and Acend are the two big winners of this first day of play-offs. They will face each other on 11th December at 6pm (CET) to try to get a place in the grand final on Sunday. The second day of play-offs will feature Gambit Esports and X10 Esports, as well as Fnatic and KRü Esports. Can all EMEA teams emerge victorious from the quarter-finals? Find out tonight at 6pm (CET) on the official Valorant Champions streams!
And to find all the results of the matches, we invite you to see our dedicated article.
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