Team Heretics dominate Dragon Ranger Gaming at Masters Shanghai Day 2

The opening games of VALORANT Masters Shanghai Swiss stage concluded with Team Heretics playing against Dragon Ranger Gaming. 

The EMEA second seed came to the tournament with a sub, as their main duelist Dominykas "MiniBoo" Lukaševičius took a much needed break ahead of the competition.

Dragon Ranger Gaming themselves have come a long way since qualifying to VCT CN via the Ascension tournament.

The game was a duel between two young squads. Let’s see how the game went down.

Team Heretics vs Dragon Ranger Gaming: 

The map veto saw the team’s choosing Icebox, Sunset and Split as their playgrounds.

Starting on DRG’s map, Team Heretics came in hot, securing a strong 8-2 lead. Fortunately, DRG won the last two rounds, cutting down the lead to four rounds.

Team Heretics extended the lead in the second half, winning the first two rounds, and used the momentum to close out the map 13-5.

DRG displayed much more vigor on Sunset, going toe to toe with their opponents in the first half. But Team Heretics came back strong as they completely shut down the DRG attack, winning the map 13-5 and swiftly finishing the series 2-0.

It was DRG’s first official International tournament, when asked if they were nervous about the game, they said:

Although this is our first time at an international tournament, I wouldn't say there's too much pressure or nervousness. I don't feel too nervous about today's matchup. I would rather say I feel really excited about it because I really want to present ourselves to the world.

Similarly, Team Heretics themselves were tackling a roster change and VISA issues, talking about the preparation from the roster, Coach Neilzinho said:

Yeah, it's definitely difficult, but we have really good fundamentals in the team. Like you said, we've played with paTiTek before, so bringing him back in and having someone like him is nice. He's extremely talented. So, it wasn't really a worry for me putting him on, and he's been asking to play for a while. Putting him on was easy because you can see how good he is.

Teamplay-wise, like I always said before, even though we had to switch out Pati before and bring back many people, I think this roster has such good fundamentals that it's quite easy for us to switch in people. It has been a difficult couple of days, but the guys have been practicing as much as they can. It has paid off so far, and I think the more games we play in the tournament, the better we're going to get.

Team Heretics will play Americas’ G2 Esports for the qualification match. Talking about the match-up, Patitek says:

I feel like we're just going to re-watch the game, take the good things, and take the bad things out. When it comes to G2, I'm happy to play against them because back in the day, they did some shady stuff with backstabbing. So, it's going to be nice to get revenge on them.

DRG will also play day after in an elimination game against FUT, talking about their chance to win the fixture, they said:

I would like to say yes because we didn't show all of our power in today's matchup.

So I think that we have this chance to win the next matchup.

The VCT Masters Shanghai action continues tomorrow with the Swiss Stage 1-0 bracket.

You can follow the action on Twitch and YouTube. You can also follow the tournament on Strafe.

Follow Strafe YouTube for press conference coverage, 1-on-1 interviews and more.

Featured Image Credits: Liu YiCun/Riot Games

Read More: FPX upset FUT on Day 1 of Masters Shanghai