The fifth international Valorant esports LAN event, the VCT Stage 2 Masters 2022 in Copenhagen, also crowned the fifth international Valorant esports LAN champion. The last team to call themselves the best in the world was FunPlus Phoenix, who faced all kinds of problems both during this tournament and throughout 2022 and won a trophy on the other hand.
Despite taking the longest and toughest route possible in the past ten days – nine rounds comprising over 480 rounds of Valorant – FPX came out on top after beating fellow surprise finalist Paper Rex. Only a team in the shape of its own life can pick up such a glove and win? FPX IGL veteran Kyrylo ‘ANGE1’ Karasov and trainer Erik ‘d00mbr0s’ Sandgren have a different view.
“I don’t think you’ve seen the best FPX,” ANGE1 said confidently at the post-final press conference. “Absolutely.”
“Yes, I can’t say that this tournament is completely over. [representative of] our identity,” adds d00mbr0s, saying “things will change” for the VCT Champions in Istanbul this year.
It’s remarkable that FPX thinks there’s another level to their game, and it’s clearly going to be a daunting prospect for teams heading into Champions. If the team can play in a disciplined but flexible way, like in Copenhagen, when there are a lot of obstacles in their way, when those obstacles are removed, that team has a high ceiling.
Unpredictability, both in terms of strategy and roster, has been a major talking point and one of the key factors in APAC’s dominance over any EMEA or NA team playing Paper Rex this year, until ’til they lose to FPX in the Copenhagen finals this year. .
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While FPX has been more responsive due to the busy schedule in Copenhagen, it will play more into that unpredictability. With champions still a long way off, developing more composition and strategy to keep other teams sharp is clearly a priority.
“I feel like we can reinvent ourselves week after week,” says d00mbr0s. “We have over a week. [until Champions]So it shouldn’t be that hard.”
According to Ardis ‘ardiis’ Svarenieks, this new innovation apparently builds on an already sizable playbook.
“We have a lot of comps that we don’t show on very different charts,” he says. “We didn’t show everything we had.”
So, with its ability to counter unpredictable teams and its desire to become harder to read going forward, FPX looks to be in the lead for Champions in September. The long-awaited victory over LAN seems to be just the beginning.
Source : The Load Out
