The 2022 VALORANT Game Changers Championship is effectively underway and groups are making their approach by means of the decrease bracket right this moment, beginning with the primary match between North America’s Shopify Rebellion and Thailand’s X10 Sapphire. Both groups have veteran gamers on their rosters, with bENITA and JinNy beforehand competing in CS:GO.
Today’s matchup was a back-and-forth affair, with every group clearly exhibiting their strengths by means of the 2 maps that have been performed. Despite getting behind early, Shopify took the 2-0 win with the assistance of their star duelist participant, sonder.
Coming into right this moment, the Game Changers match has needed to make changes to the match schedules as a result of some gamers within the match are below the age of 18. In Berlin, native restrictions forestall youngsters from working late into the evening.
Today’s opening match was rescheduled from 8am CT to 6am CT. Despite the rescheduling, each groups got here out firing and able to go on Haven.
Haven was X10 Sapphire’s map choose, which wasn’t a shock since coming into right this moment’s contest, the group was undefeated on the map during the last 11 occasions they’ve performed it.
The first half of the map started largely as anticipated, with X10 Sapphire taking a simple 9-3 lead on their attacking facet. The APAC group performs the map with an aggressive technique that appeared to catch Shopify off guard.
But Shopify, as a group that has time and time once more needed to face robust contests in their very own area, got here again within the second half to tie issues up and send the map to additional time. In additional time, the groups traded rounds till Shopify finally got here out on prime 16-14.
In the post-match interview, sonder referenced the aggression that X10 Sapphire dropped at the desk as a part of the explanation her group struggled within the early half of the map.
Shopify’s map choose was Pearl, and after a detailed name on Haven, they got here into their map choose fired up. Though Babytz put up a battle with Chamber efficiency, sonder was the star of the map.
X10 Sapphire struggled to web rounds of their favor, and the few intermittent wins they did get left them unable to construct up their financial system.
To cap off the match, sonder waltzed her approach into spawn and bought an ace with a superbly executed Neon final. This sealed the deal for her group, 13-6, and additionally noticed her win participant of the match.
X10 Sapphire are actually eradicated from the match. Shopify will go on to face the winner of Cloud 9 White vs. GUILD X. If C9 win their match, it will arrange a rematch between the 2 prime groups in NA which were battling your complete 12 months.
Shopify’s subsequent match is tomorrow, Nov. 19, at 10am CT.
