The VALORANT Champions Tour Game Changers Series 2 qualifiers concluded this past weekend as the eight main event teams were set. Thirty-one teams participated in the double-elimination qualification process, but only eight could qualify for the event. Those eight teams are:
- Dignitas
- Cloud9 White
- Just Breathe
- TSM Female
- NOTHING2LOSE
- GX3
- Shopify Rebellion
- CLG Red
Out of those eight, there are over 40 players ready to compete for the larger slice of the $50,000 prize pool. The main event begins on June 24 and culminates in a finals showdown on June 27. Here are the top five players fans should keep an eye on going into the event.
Just Breathe’s Milk
Kiara “Milk” Makua is no stranger to high level competition or VALORANT Champions Tour Game Changers. She’s competed in Counter-Strike for multiple years under the Dignitas banner and joined them in their foray in VALORANT recently. But, she parted ways with the roster after the first installment of the tournament series. Now, on Just Breathe, she is leading a different group of players with her aggressive playmaking.
Primarily a Duelist player, Milk normally pilots Raze or Reyna in the team’s most recent matches. As the primary entry and Duelist player, she has some of the highest damage statistics on her team. Her best agent is Reyna with a 1.09 Kill/Death ratio and averages 0.85 kills per round, according to VLR.gg. Just Breathe is a relatively new roster, having formed around May of 2021. But, they already have a few impressive wins under their belt. Milk and the squad defeated Gen.G Team Bumble in the Sakura Cup #2 playoffs and bested CLG Red 2-1 to qualify for the event.
CLG Red’s rise
One of CLG Red’s more recent signings, Melanie “rise” Tetreault, is the team’s smoker. She sets up the team with utility on either Viper or Astra, but she also keeps up in terms of frags across maps. Rise averages a 1.24 KD on Viper in her most recent outings, with an impressive 1.55 KD on Astra. With the recent meta developments, rise’s Omen has fallen out of the meta. She has played the agent in over 500 rounds, but has the flexibility to pick up both Viper and Astra in the post-plant meta.
Rise also had one of the best clips of the qualifying tournament from their loss against Just Breathe. She notched a 1 v 5 ace as Just breathe cornered her on split.
SHE'S INSANE @riseeFPS
@clgaming | #VCT | https://t.co/d3jG7ATS86 pic.twitter.com/VGSxNnAJ6t
— Nerd Street (@nerdstreet) June 20, 2021
GX3’s alimonstr
Ali “alimonstr” Lew is a veteran of the Counter-Strike community and recently made the switch over to VALORANT. She founded the GX3 brand in 2002 and has brought it over to VALORANT for her venture into the game. The GX3 team and alimonstr competed in the FTW Summer Showdown in 2020 with a roster that would eventually turn into CLG Red. In 2020, that team — stacked with players like Benita “bENITA” Novshadian, Evil Geniuses’ Christine “potter” Chi and Claudia “Clawdia” Che — made it to the finals before losing 2-0 to a new Cloud9 White roster.
Alimonstr is usually her team’s smoker. She was an Omen main in 2020, but came into the post-plant meta with mastery of Astra and Viper. Under her leadership, GX3 defeated Man I Love Fwogs and Serenity Purple en route to the Game Changers main event. While they did fall to TSM Female 2-1 in the upper bracket, the team kept up with the signed squad in kills and firepower. In that series, alimonstr had an incredible 38% head shot rate. The next closest was 24%.
Shopify Rebellion’s flowerful
Shopify Rebellion are a new brand to VALORANT and the Game Changers series, but the roster is not. Formerly Built Butter and Moon Raccoons Black, this roster placed in the top four in the last Game Changers tournament. The team also made waves in the qualifying tournament, becoming the first women’s team to take a map off of Cloud9 White. They took the first map, Split, 13-7 and owe much of that win to their Sentinels player Kayla “flowerful” Horton.
On the map, flowerful earned a 336 average combat score and led her team with 22 kills on Killjoy. Over the course of her time with the team, flowerful has mainly played Killjoy. However, she occasionally puts time on Sage and Viper. She is one of the more consistent players on the aggressive Shopify Rebellion squad; she averages a 1.07 on Killjoy and maintains a high damage per round average at 133.
Shopify Rebellion has been quietly making their mark on the women’s scene in events like V1sionaries, the Super Girl Gamer Pro circuit and the Sakura Cup. While there are more flashy players on the squad, fans should keep an eye on flowerful, as she may pop off at any moment for her team.
Cloud9’s AnnieDro
This list would not be complete without mentioning at least one Cloud9 White player. The team has reigned over the women’s scene since its inception, to the point that dropping one map is big news. Of Cloud9’s stacked lineup, Annie “AnnieDro” Roberts is the player that fans may want to keep an eye on in this Game Changers installment. The Sova and Viper player is a focal point of the team in the current post-plant meta and she is one of the Sova masters at this event.
2k with ult + 2k sheriff pic.twitter.com/i5V9ZRX8bX
— Annie Dro (@Annie_Dro) June 4, 2021
She averages over 140 damage per round on Sova across her 1,520 rounds played as the agent. While not always in the spot light, or running head-first into fights as a Duelist, AnnieDro is heavily involved in Cloud9’s site-hit set ups and post-plant lockdowns. And, she is still on par with the rest of her team in terms of aim.
Fans can watch these players compete in the VALORANT Game Changers Series 2 tournament on Thursday, June24, as the first round kicks off at 3 p.m. EST.
Published: Jun 23, 2021 12:26 pm