Usual Suspects: NA Valorant Challengers League Split 1 Week 1, Day 1 Recap

We were rooting for the other guys.

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. Format Guide.

Favorites G2 Esports and The Guard claimed their first scalps of the split in the form of FaZe Clan and Disguised. FaZe Clan had their inaugural roster debut just a few hours after their timely roster announcement. Francis “OXY” Hoang emerged as a promising new rookie for G2 Esports.

Here’s a complete cover for everything you might have missed from Week 1 of the 2023 Valorant NA Challengers League Split 1.

Current NA VCL Standings (Week 1)

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

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

Day One Match Results

FaZe Clan vs G2 Esports [1-2]

To the chagrin of many “ShahZaM” haters, and to the delight of his fans, G2 Esports managed to surmount FaZe Clan in yesterday’s series. G2 Esports claimed their first victory 2-1, with the scorelines of 5-13, 13-4, and 13-6. Francis “OXY” Hoang had a stellar debut performance on G2 last night, dropping a combined 55 kills (+10 K:D) in the series.

Map 2 especially was a resounding clapback for the young star, who bounced back after a deafening first map for FaZe. On Icebox, he carried G2 to a win with 27 kills and only 13 deaths (+14 K:D). However, FaZe struggled with consistency in the series. After winning G2’s map pick of Fracture 13-5, they not only lost their own map pick, but also the decider map with a total of 10 rounds won on the two maps.

Strafe Player of the Series: G2 OXY

The Guard vs Disguised [2-0]

Rough day to be a loaf, as The Guard soundly defeated Disguised last night 2-nil. The Guard claimed their first victory with the scorelines of 13-9 and 13-5. Bind was a close push and pull affair, with Disguised actually pulling ahead to a 6-2 lead. Despite a 6-6 half however, Disguised would only manage to post 3 more rounds in their defensive half.

Joseph “clear” Allen was the only member of Disguised to go positive, at 21 kills to 19 deaths (+2 K:D). The second highest posting after him was Amgalan “Genghsta” Nemekhbayar at 12 kills to 14 (-2 K:D). Map 2 Ascent was the story of Jacob “valyn” Batio, who had a monster map, going 18/8/6 on defense for a total of 23/12/13 (+11 K:D).

Strafe Player of the Series: GRD valyn

Notable Stats for NA VCL Week 1

• “valyn” is currently the highest posted player on vlr.gg, at 277 ACS and a 1.7 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.

Today’s Matches

TSM vs MAD Lions [1600 EST/ 2100 GMT]

BreakThru vs Oxygen Esports [1900 EST/ 0000 GMT]

Image credit: Knights Arena