Total Shorty Kills
100 Thieves and XSET will meet in the NA Stage 2: Challengers 1 Grand Final
Brandon "Mothman" Moore
04/11/2021
The first four teams for the NA Regional Finals has already been decided. Now, those four teams battled to determine who will move on to the Grand Final. Prize money and seeding for the NA Regional Finals are on the line. After yet another grueling open qualifier, Stage 2: Challengers 1 has seen a closed Main Event that has been just as brutal thus far. The continuation of this Valorant Champions Tour tournament included the Upper Final, Lower Round 3, and Lower Final.
100 Thieves and XSET will meet in the NA Stage 2: Challengers 1 Grand Final
Upper Final
The Upper Final of Stage 2: Challengers 1 saw 100 Thieves and Team Envy go to a third map. The final result of the series is not surprising. What is surprising is how it all unfolded. It all started on Bind. 100 Thieves entered the server on defense and only gave up three rounds to Envy in the first half. Four attacking rounds later and Bind was over in 29:29 with a score of 13:3.
Team Envy had it in the bag, but almost had that bag stolen on Ascent. The first half of Ascent had the same round count, but in Envy’s favor. 100 Thieves pushed back to match point, but gave up the two final rounds in regulation. Thankfully for Team Envy, they won two quick OT rounds to take it 14:12. Incredibly, 100 Thieves dominated on Haven. 25 kills by Peter “Asuna” Mazuryk solidified a 100T 2:1 victory as Haven ended 13:4. 100 Thieves secured a spot in the Stage 2: Challengers 1 Grand Final.
Lower Round 3
XSET and Version1 hoped to continue their battle through the Lower Bracket. XSET absolutely dominated the first map. Bryce “PureR” Lovell ended Bind with 23 kills on XSET’s way to a 13:3 map win. The trend of three maps with only one close contest continued. Version1 stood their ground on defense, entering halftime with a solid lead. XSET was successful on their own defensive side, however. V1 fought back and prevented overtime 13:11 on the back 24 kills from Jordan “Zellsis” Montemurro.
Moving on to Bind, XSET was ready to punch their ticket to the Lower Final. Once again, PureR picked Raze and was an utter nightmare for Version1. The first half was XSET’s defensive half. They left with a solid 8:4 lead over V1. The second half reset wasn’t enough to light a fire under V1. PureR ended Bind with 23 more kills and an ACS of 351. Five attacking rounds, with only one defensive round going to Version1 in between, ended Bind 13:5. XSET moved o to face Team Envy with the second 2:1 series of the day.
Lower Final
If the contents off 100T vs. NV were shocking, then the results of XSET vs. NV jumped straight out of a cake. The Lower Final’s first map was Split. Things started off in XSET’s favor, but Team Envy quickly changed the tune, winning the final nine rounds of the first half. A bit of a back and forth occurred after halftime, but Team Envy shut XSET down 13:9. Nothing unusual there. Now, over to Bind.
Bind saw XSET lay down a reverse UNO card. Defense and offense went well for XSET. The first half gave them a slight lead that they managed to hang on to. The highly predicted 2:0 for Team Envy wasn’t going to happen as XSET finished Bind 13:9. Another map three on the day and another 13:9 round count took place. Ascent was the final map of the day. In a wild turn of events, XSET took the second spot in the Grand Final. A 2:1 was capped off with an Ascent victory. Incredible.
Stay tuned to Run It Back as 100 Thieves and XSET go to war in the Stage 2: Challengers 1 Grand Final!
