The Nerd Street Gamers x Renegades North American (NA) Valorant event is about to kick off. The event sports and interesting mix of American top dogs, with NA’s teams with upset potential. Here are the top stories, and teams to watch out for, going into the NSG x Renegades event.

The event lasts over the weekend from October 17 until October 18, and has a $10,000 prize pool with the winner going home with $6,000. Hosting a total of 16 teams, the event is split into four groups with four teams each, with two teams advancing to the playoffs.

T1 Makes a Grand Return

This will be T1’s first event ever since they took a break in order to refresh their roster. Letting go of Victor “food” Wong, and Austin “crashies” Roberts, was the first step in the team’s roster shuffle. Both players quickly found a new home under the Team Envy banner. T1 then brought Sam “DaZeD” Marine and Ha “Spyder” Jung-woo as replacements for the two aforementioned players. To fully complement the roster, Tyler “Skadoodle” Latham has been brought back from his inactivity. The changes made to the roster resulted in a recreation of the infamous iBUYPOWER Counter-Strike: Global Offensive roster from 2014, minus Josh “steele” Nissan, who joined 100 Thieves instead. NSG x Renegades will be a test for the reformed T1 roster. Surely, the team wants to aim for the top. With First Strike round around the corner, this event will test T1’s ability to compete with a mix of top dogs, and underdog teams.

China Nguyen Now Fight Under Equinox Esports

One of NA’s top formerly unsigned teams, China Nguyen, has finally found a home at a new organization, Equinox Esports. With impressive showings at a range of C-B tier events, and even upset potential against the likes of Team SoloMid (TSM), it was a matter of time before the unsigned five got an offer. NSG x Renegades will be the first event for the roster under the Equinox Esports banner. With heaps of 1st place finishes at lesser events, it will be interesting to see whether Equinox Esports can come up big at such a big event with some of the finest NA Valorant teams.

Cloud9 Looking for their Win

Having onboard possibly one of the greatest talents on the first-person-shooter esports scene, Tyson “TenZ” Ngo, Cloud9 still has not claimed a win at a big event. Cloud9 was one of the first NA organizations to enter Valorant, however, a win at a big event is yet to be seen. Cloud9 has a resume filled with second and third place finishes at big events. Pulse Invitaional, Immortals First Light, and PAX Arena Invitational led to TenZ and co. finishing as the runners up. PK Invitational and the most recent, Pop Flash, both ended in a semi-final loss for the Cloud9 roster. Failing to at least garner one win at a big event must be demotivating in the long run. Perhaps this NSG x Renegades event will mark a breakthrough for this filled-with-talent Cloud9 Valorant squad.

Gen.G Looking to Bounce Back

Gen.G is definitely considered to be up there among the finest NA Valorant teams. However, their last event, Pop Flash, saw them fly out all the way in the group stage, where they failed to even win one match. Gen.G already proved that they are more than able to win at big events. The team found victory at Pulse Invitational, PK Tournament Series, as well as T1 x NSG Invitational all the way back in May. The team will be looking to prove that their early exit at Pop Flash was a minor blunder. Given the team lineup at NSG x Renegades, Gen.G is more than able to go far into the event.

Groups

Here are how the teams stack up going into the group stage of the event:

GROUP A

• Gen.G Esports
• Immortals
• Rise
• beastcoast

GROUP B

• Equinox Esports
• Cloud9
• Complexity Gaming
• Andbox

GROUP C

• FaZe Clan
• Luminosity Gaming
• Spacestation Gaming
• Mamba Mode Gaming

GROUP D

• T1
• Renegades
• Moon Raccoons
• Time In

Only two teams from each group will move onto the playoffs.

You can watch all of the matchups over on the Nerd Street Gamers Twitch channel kicking off October 17.

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