VALORANT Champions Press Conference

With Champions, the most anticipated event of the VCT 2021, starting in less than twenty-four hours, the excitement and hype in the community is surreal. But before sixteen of the world’s best teams engage in intense matches to be crowned the first Valorant world champion, the in-game leaders (IGL) of each team participated in a press conference answering the communities most intriguing questions. The conference was conducted at 9 pm CET / 12 pm PT and featured the following players:

• Conference 1: Sentinels - ShahZam, Cloud9 - Vanity, Fnatic - Boaster, Team Liquid - Jamppi
• Conference 2: M3 Champions - Redgar, Envy - ImAChet, Acend - StarXO, DRX - Stax
• Conference 3: Hope- Murizzz, FURIA - Mazino, Team Vikings - Sacy, KRÜ Esports - Nozwer
• Conference 4: FULL SENSE- PTC, Crazy Raccoon- Ade, Team Secret- Dubstep, X10 Esports - Crws

THESPIKE.GG, too, was provided the opportunity to participate in this event and we managed to instigate some interesting responses from the participants:

Question 1 - Cloud9 Anthony "vanity" Malaspina: Do you believe having experience playing in a Valorant LAN event will allow you and your teammates to better adjust to the current setting?

I don’t think the LAN thing is meaningful until the crowd is back. Maybe I’m wrong but I don’t believe there is a difference playing online and playing on a stage versus only the other team. I think it is a completely different game with thousands of people screaming at you but in this situation, I have no worries that there will be any major difference in our gameplay.

Question 2 - Fnatic Jake "Boaster" Howlett: You secured the 2nd place at Masters Reykjavik but fell short of making Challengers in Stage 3. How do you feel about your current form?

After Iceland, I started to stray away from being a leader to a high-impact player and wanting frags. But I soon realized that wasn’t my role, and that my role was to facilitate my boys so they can achieve that for the team. That’s why I have been practicing to become the best leader I can be. As for the whole team, we have had a difficult process since Iceland of ironing out the things we were masking in Iceland. We were a fresh team then, and while we were hitting shots and had the strats, it lacked depth. Ever since, we have been adding that to our gameplay and hopefully it works out.

Question 3 - M3 Champions Igor "Redgar" Vlasov: Gambit showed the world in Masters Berlin that you have what it takes to become champions, but more recently you encountered defeat to LDN Utd and Acend in the Red Bull Home Ground - #2 - Main Event. Did this setback provide motivation to practice harder for the Champions?

I will speak for myself because for me it's always situations when you're losing that helps in finding the weaknesses in your strategies and how you can erase them to improve your gameplay for upcoming games. So, you're right, we did start to practice much more after the loss than we did before it.

Question 4 - X10 Esports Thanamethk "Crws" Mahatthananuyut: Your opening matchup is against Envy who made the grand finals in Masters Berlin. How do you feel about the team's confidence going against a team with a dominant form in recent events?

To be honest I personally am happy that we were matched up against envy because like you just said they went into the finals; so, if we beat them then we should make it to the finals as well, right? I would say it isn’t that difficult. We just need to work on firepower, map awareness, trading, movement -- and probably everything. We will do good guys. Don't worry, we got this!

Question 5: Crazy Raccoon Teppei "ade" Kuno: Being the only team here representing Japan, do you feel the pressure of this event, and are you confident in your ability to outshine Team Vikings in your opening game?

We do feel the pressure since there are a lot of friends, as well as an entire community in Japan rooting for our success. However, I feel confident in our performance against Team Vikings since we pray while preparing for it.

And that's a wrap from THESPIKE in the VALORANT Champions press conference, we eagerly await the build up to the kick off of the event tomorrow!