Thursday’s VALORANT Champions Tour 2022 North America Last Chance Qualifiers match between Sentinels and The Guard hit 600,000 peak viewers, according to stream metrics tracker Esports Charts.
This number of peak viewers revolves around two passionate fanbases and a couple of narratives: Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek‘s debut with Sentinels and and a very close LCQ three-map series.
🔥 585K+ Peak Viewesr on 1st game of #VCT 2022 North America LCQ – @Sentinels vs @TheGuard.
TOP co-streamers:
#1 @tarik
#2 @shroud (@bnans)
#3 @kyedaehttps://t.co/sFK71E5Ht4@valesports_na #VCTNA— Esports Charts 🇺🇦 (@EsportsCharts) August 4, 2022
The match hit 585,000 concurrent viewers before the final map started, according to Esports Charts, and viewership went even higher then. An overtime period pushed even more eyeballs, with The Guard just clutching out a win.
Stage 2 Masters in Copenhagen earlier this year only passed 600,000 viewers during the grand final.
A good start for the NA LCQ
The match itself reflected lived up to the hype and started off the last-chance qualifier with a bang.
Sentinels made some notable changes coming into this tournament outside of the Shroud signing as well: former Version1 player Jordan “Zellsis” Montemurro also made his debut for Sentinels in this series. Considering how long fans waited between Sentinels’ last game and this one, plus shroud’s fans joining in, viewership exploded.
What a way to kick off the #VALORANTLCQ! @TheGuard defeat the new-look @Sentinels 2-1.
Map 1 – Breeze : SEN 15-13
Map 2 – Ascent : TGRD 13-10
Map 3 – Icebox: TGRD 15-13 pic.twitter.com/iJRD62KiS9— VALORANT Esports NA (@valesports_na) August 4, 2022
What this means for the rest of the LCQ
It would be pretty early to expect this kind of viewership for the rest of the tournament. Most of the viewership revolved around Sentinels, their new roster and their big streamer’s return to competitive play. With that, the rest of Sentinels’ LCQ games might continue to bring big numbers in peak viewers.
