The opening day of Valorant First Strike: North America is over and we got to witness two dominating performances from Team Envy and TSM. They will both advance to play each other on Saturday in the Semifinals.
Here’s more about their victories and how these teams stole the show from their opponents.
Team Envy v Immortals
The opening match of the Valorant First Strike: North America tournament featured Team Envy v Immortals. Team Envy took the first match on Icebox with a convincing 13-5 victory. The team played well all around, but Jake “kaboose” McDonald had an especially good performance on Raze.
The second map was on Ascent, and this one was much closer. Team Envy even went down for a period but squeaked out a 13-11 victory behind a powerful performance from Pujan “FNS” Mehta. His Cypher was dominant and made a strong case for using the Agent on Ascent.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/824532245
TSM v Renegades
The First Strike tournament’s first match between TSM and Renegades was a massive blowout with TSM winning 13-1. While this result wasn’t surprising given that the Renegades were a low seed, it was still a big win for TSM.
Renegades got a small amount of redemption in the second match on Haven, winning five rounds, but they still fell 13-5. Taylor “Drone” Johnson and Yassine “Subroza” Taoufik had spectacular showings on Pheonix and Raze, respectively, and TSM was able to pull off the 2-0 sweep to advance to the semifinals.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/824683544
Team Envy and TSM will represent the first half of the semifinals in the First Strike tournament. This should be a good matchup that winds up a lot closer than the two we saw today. Judging off these games, TSM seems to have a slight edge with two resounding victories, but Team Envy will surely be prepared.
The tournament continues at 3:00 PM ET Friday with 100 Thieves taking on T1 and Sentinels against FaZe Clan.
Published: Dec 4, 2020 10:38 am