The first-ever international VALORANT LAN kicks off on May 24. Five players from the participating teams answered questions at a pre-event press conference. From discussions around the meta and different regions’ playstyles, to some lighthearted trash talk, these four things we learned from the event.
The rivalry between NA v EU is VERY much alive in VALORANT, even in the Masters 2 press conference
VALORANT viewers from every region will be supporting their home teams throughout Masters but as an European fan, there is nothing more satisfying than knocking out NA teams. Similarly, NA fans will be praying that Sentinels and V1 can be the ones to send Fnatic and Team Liquid packing but as we witnessed from the pre-event press conference, the players themselves are definitely on board with this rivalry too.
There wasn’t any hard-hitting trash talk but it’s clear that both regions have some opinions about the other.
“Europe and America have a similar game style but I do think Europe is a bit better. Sentinels have amazing players individually but I feel like what they do is very predictable compared to EU,” Team Liquid’s Adil “ScreaM” Benrlitom said when asked about what NA’s biggest weakness is in their approach to the game.
mood pic.twitter.com/FKdrCihsRL
— KC ScreaM 🇵🇸 (@ScreaM_) May 23, 2021
Sentinels’ in-game leader Shahzeb “ShahZaM” Khan wasted no time to defend his team and region, responding directly to Scream
“The team you saw at Masters 1 and from the Regional Finals is a different team than you’ll see here.” SHahZaM said.
Version1’s Anthony “vanity” Malaspina also chimed in on the differences and similarities between the two regions.
“The North American teams and European teams play the same exact style – just default heavy but the Europeans do it slower,” he said. “I wouldn’t say the utility difference between NA and EU VALORANT is very much.”
“In EU they play for kills and to molly the spike and it’s the same in North America. I think the notion that the European utility usage is better is just not true.”
All four teams from NA and EU will get a chance to prove themselves and settle the debate once and for all and potentially as soon as Day 2 if both Fnatic and V1 are able to overcome their play-in opponents.
– Yinsu Collins
V1 Vanity confirms Vikings are the best team at Iceland at the Masters 2 press conference
“I think the best team we have scrimmed is Vikings,” vanity said. “They’re the best team we have practiced against so far.”
The Brazilian powerhouse team is a question mark coming into Iceland since not much is known about the region from the outside. However, with four tournament victories under their belts, Vikings are the team to beat at Iceland. Never mind the fact that vanity also mentioned they hadn’t scrimmed against top teams such as Sentinels, FNATIC, or Team Liquid.
Even Team Vikings’ Gabriel “sutecas” Dias had confidence in his own team when he spoke about their debut match against X10.
“I think we are going to win, of course. It is not going to be an easy match but we really trust in ourselves. It should be 2-0,” he said.
With the confidence level that both sutecas and vanity have in Vikings, they may be taking home the Masters 2 trophy.
– Danny Appleford
Astra just isn’t that good… sorry North America
North America has hotly debated the use of Astra since she was released into competition. Many professional coaches and players from NA talked about how important she was to the meta. The two teams from NA who made it to Iceland whilst using Astra in their composition echoed the same sentiment. But… is she really that good? Well, according to Jake “Boaster” Howlett and Adil “ScreaM” Benrlitom, the answer is no.
“Astra…yeah she’s pretty good,” Boaster said while speaking on why FNATIC had been using Brimstone over the star-focused agent. “I mean, you got the cross-map and you got all her… stars and whatnot, but I don’t think she’s needed. I think her ultimate is useless.”
Boaster even went on to say that Astra’s “sucks” aren’t even that great utility-wise and can be outmaneuvered easily.
ScreaM added fuel to the fire by saying that Astra was just straight up overrated.
“I think Astra is definitely overrated. I think she’s good, but she’s not as good as people say. We are really good with Brimstone and know how to use him. We don’t need Astra for now and no one on our team felt like playing her.” ScreaM said.
– Appleford
Team Liquid are going to destroy everyone
This one isn’t even much of a takeaway because it came right out of Scream’s mouth. That’s right, you can’t argue with one of the best VALORANT players on the planet. So yes, we’re just going to let him do the talking.
“I don’t even know who we’re playing but we’re going to destroy everybody.” he said.
– Collins
And there we have it, the four takeaways from the pre-event press conference. Upcomer will be bringing more VCT Masters coverage throughout the week so make sure to keep an eye out on twitter.com/Upcomer and our website.
