Cover-Credits:
If you play Valorant yourself, you must surely know and relate to the rush you get from scoring an ace. Nothing beats the feeling of getting five back-to-back kills and showing off a cool finisher along with the ace. As the best in the business within Valorant esports are convened in one place at a high-stakes World championship, we were likely to see some hot-shot high-caliber plays. Valorant Champions 2022 has so far delivered on that front. We’ve witnessed stellar plays and iconic aces at the tournament. Here are some of the best aces from the group stage of Valorant Champions 2022, currently ongoing in Istanbul, Turkey.
Aces at Valorant Champions 2022
EDG nobody secured the first ace of the tournament
On 31st August, China’s international Valorant debut sparked endless conversations on social media, thanks to EDward Gaming’s (EDG) passion and aggression. EDG played Paper Rex (PRX) in the Group A opener. The first map Pearl went in favor of PRX and on the second map, EDG came out of the floodgates fighting. In the fifth round, EDG was attacking and its members were slowly picked off by the PRX roster. However, EDG’s Senxu “nobody” Wang stood his ground and collected five kills, thanks to his tactical play and crisp aim.
OpTic crashies with the 1v5 ace on Fracture zipline
OpTic Gaming’s Austin “crashies” Roberts might have gotten away with one of the most bizarre and funniest aces we’ve ever seen in Valorant esports history. On 1st September, crashies collected this ace in the decider map in the best-of-three (BO3) series against Boom Esports (BME). Crashies positioned himself at the end of the ziplines on Fracture and gave headshots to the five members of Boom Esports one after the other as they could not do anything.
LEV Shyy’s ace with Fade against Paper Rex
Leviatán (LEV) has been extremely dominant at Valorant Champions and the team was the first to qualify for the playoffs bracket. In the 2-0 series against Paper Rex (PRX) on 2nd September, LEV’s Fabian "Shyy" Usnayo scored an ace with Fade. Shyy’s play on A site on Bind turned things around for his team which was down a couple of rounds. After trading kills near the teleporter on A site, instead of walking to B, Shyy lurked around A and got his ace.
ZETA Laz hits all the shots against BOOM Esports
ZETA Division’s Koji "Laz" Ushida picked up an insane ace against Indonesian squad BOOM Esports in the Elimination Match for Group B on 4th September. After losing the first map, Haven, by a close margin, ZETA had to win the second map Pearl and Laz’s clutch play helped the team avoid overtime and secure it.
EDG’s Yongkang “ZmjjKK” Zheng also collected an ace on 4th September against Team Liquid in the Group A eliminator.
XERXIA Crws collects a quick ace against KRU
XERXIA’s (XIA) run in Valorant Champions 2022 was cut short after the team suffered defeats at the hands of XSET and KRU Esports. Following its loss on 5th September at the Elimination Match in Group C, XERXIA is now out of the tournament. However, the team gave it its all in the match against KRU and took the series to game 3. After losing the first map pretty badly, XIA looked dominant on map 2 Haven, which it won. In round 8, XIA’s Thanamethk “Crws” Mahatthananuyut collected five quick kills on Haven A site. One of the kills was a repeat kill on the enemy Fade as she was resurrected by Sage. In total, XIA collected six kills that round.
Fnatic Derke styles on FURIA with Chamber
Fnatic was tasked with taking on FURIA in the Group D elimination match on 5th September and won the series 2-1 to send FURIA home packing. However, it lost the first map Icebox 13-9. Despite a poor performance on Icebox, Fnatic had highlight-worthy plays on it and the top-ranked play was Nikita “Derke” Sirmitev’s Chamber ace. At the start of Round 8, Fnatic planted in A site on Icebox and was down two members against FURIA’s full-squad. However, Derke swiftly picked up a collateral kill onto two members of FURIA with his operator shot and repositioned himself at A nest. By the time he picked up his third kill of the round, it was a 2v1 situation and only he was alive. Derke then picked up another kill on the Sage and walked up to the fifth person, the Chamber, who was defusing the spike and killed him.
FPX ardiis gets an ace on pistol
FunPlus Phoenix (FPX) and XSET faced each other at the Group C Winners’ Match on 5th September and XSET took down the Masters Copenhagen champion with a 2-1 scoreline. XSET won the first map Pearl but FPX showed up big time on map 2 Fracture. In the 13th round on Fracture, FPX’s Ardis “ardiis” Svarenieks secured an ace with Chamber using the classic gun.
Click here to read more about Valorant Champions 2022 and to follow the scores and updates from the tournament.
