NA Valorant Challengers League Split 1 Week 1, Day 3 Recap

Valorant

5 Feb

Foo Zen-Wen

Veterans for a reason…

The North American Challengers League 2023 is comprised of 12 teams competing over 2 splits during the year. The first split, set to run from the 1st of Feb until the 17th of Mar, will culminate in attendance to the Mid-Season Invitational.

Shopify Rebellion and M80 took no prisoners in their respective series against Turtle Troops and OREsports. Experience and solid fundamentals were key elements in yesterday's matches.

Here’s a complete cover of everything you might have missed from Week 1 of the 2023 Valorant NA Challengers League Split 1 (Day 1 Recap here, Day 2 Recap here)

Current NA VCL Standing (Week 1)

NA VCL Group A Week 1 Standings. Screengrab Strafe Esports.

NA VCL Group B Week 1 Standings. Screengrab Strafe Esports.

Day Three Match Results

Shopify Rebellion vs Turtle Troop [2-0]

Dominance was quickly established for Shopify with their 13-2 win on Turtle Troop’s map pick of Fracture. Despite Turtle’s best efforts of re-engineering the 9-3 curse on Bind, the second map went Shopify’s way as well, 13-8. Across the series, Shopify had no real standout performances but rather a stellar fundamental game, with great calls and reads that pulled apart Turtle Troops’ chances.

Brandon “bdog” Sanders was the closest Shopify had to a star carry, however, the majority of his success was found on Bind, where he went 23/12/6, going 40/21/20 across the entire series. Most notably, since their last showing, Shopify has now shifted “bdog” over from the Chamber to Brimstone. Despite that, he was still the best performer of his team, proving this star will shine regardless of circumstances.

Strafe Player of the Series: SR bdog

M80 vs OREsports [2-1]

Outfoxed at nearly every turn. That was M80 last night as they took down OREsports. The one exception being Map 2, where an initial 9-3 score for M80 turned sour in the face of a Raze Op courtesy of OREsports Elijah “Zeldris” Hawkins.

The young star put on a masterclass with the sniper rifle, posting a 1.28 KD on Map 2, with a 23/16/4 scoreline. An angered M80 slammed back on Map 3, allowing OREsports only a single round on their way to winning the series.

Strafe Player of the Series: M80 koalanoob

Notable Stats for NA VCL Week 1

“bdog”is currently the highest posted player on vlr.gg, at 304.5 ACS and 1.9 KD.
Both rookies, “OXY” and “clear” had stellar debut series with the former posting a 312.7 ACS and 1.22 KD, and the latter posting 229.5 ACS and 0.94 KD.
“skuba” ascends to third place with a 266 ACS and 1.82 KD despite his team’s loss. The former-Knights rookie shows great promise.
TSM vs MAD Lions is currently the longest series of the split at 61 rounds played.
6 teams are currently undefeated at the end of Week 1, and only 3 teams remain with a perfect record (has not dropped a single map); Shopify Rebellion, BreakThru and The Guard.
Sova is currently the agent with the highest pickrate for this VCL at 57%. Killjoy has taken over from Chamber as the most picked Sentinel. Surprisingly, Fade is currently the agent with the lowest active pickrate this VCL, at 10%. Only Pearl has seen her predominantly used over Sova. (Stats from vlr.gg)