Cover-Credits:
The much-awaited Valorant Champions 2022 tournament kicked off in Istanbul, Turkey today on 31st August with the Group A opener series featuring Asia Pacific’s (APAC) Paper Rex and China’s EDward Gaming (EDG). Coming into the series, most people favored Paper Rex since this is the first-ever international event for EDG. However, EDG quickly proved its worth by going toe to toe against PRX and by contesting every round. In the last round before swap, EDG picked up four quick kills but PRX’s Aaron "mindfreak" Leonhart answered back with swift four kills to secure the round and equalize the round scores 6-6 in Game 1 (Pearl) of the best-of-three (BO3) series.
After an intense back-and-forth battle that stretched 24 rounds, Paper Rex came out ahead and won Pearl with a 13-11 record. But, EDG bounced back pretty quickly and won second map Icebox with a dominant 13-5 score.
Mindfreak clutches round with Astra
At the start of round 12, Paper Rex was attacking and trailing by one round. It seemed like EDG would close out the half with a steady two-round lead. However, mindfreak’s hero play on Astra rained on EDG’s parade.
Paper Rex walked through mid-doors and was quickly caught in the crosshairs of Zheng “ZmjjKK” Yongkang, who was playing Chamber. ZmjjKK picked up kills on Benedict “Benkai” Tan, Jason “f0rsakeN” Susanto, Khalish “d4v4i” Rusyaidee and Wang “Jinggg” Jing Jiewith his Chamber Ultimate - Tour de Force. Notably, PRX’s Jingg answered back with a kill onto ZmjjKK before he went down. Meanwhile, mindfreak who was on flank near Mid Connector on Pearl, caught EDG members off guard and picked up three quick kills on Shunzhi “CHICHOO” Wan, Zhao “Smoggy” Zhang, and Senxu “nobody” Wang.
At this point, the round was completely turned around and both teams were put in a 1v1 situation with both Astras alive. Following this, mindfreak planted at A and played from the back of the site and forced the ultimate from Haodong “Haodong” Guo, the in-game leader (IGL) of EDG. Thanks to his smart positioning, mindfreak was able to kill Haodong as he was defusing the spike.
The player replay cam showed mindfreak erupting in joy. The pro player was also seen screaming “mentality breakdance, mentality breakdance!” at the players of EDG.
The third map of the first BO3 series of Valorant Champions is being played on Haven. The winner of this series will head on to play in the Winner’s Match of Group A on 1st September. Click here to read more about Valorant Champions 2022 and to follow the scores and updates from the tournament.
