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esports
How Gotaga and LotharHS aced Riot’s new game to become Valorant finalists
The top streamers from Vitality and G2 made it to the final of the first ever Valorant Twitch tournament. What do they think of the new tactical shooter from the creators of League of Legends?
The day has finally come. Riot Games have released a game that isn’t in the League of Legends universe. Sure, Valorant may only be in beta right now, but what does that matter when Twitch is already broadcasting tournaments for the game, and the world’s best FPS players are already streaming daily, figuring out the game’s meta?
The first major tournament for Valorant has now taken place, in the form of Twitch Rivals, a competition featuring top streamers and a lot of pros from other titles. In the European division, a team led by Team Vitality’s Corentin ‘Gotaga’ Houssein won the competition, taking down a team led by G2 Esports’ Jakub ‘LotharHS’ Szygulski in the final.
“It was cool to play the first Valorant Tournament, and I was happy with the win, even if it was a really small tournament,” says French streamer and former Call of Duty pro Houssein. “It's not a real achievement because the game is not open to everyone yet and my team was a good one because we were playing with a CSGO [Counter-Strike: Global Offensive] specialist, and players that have been playing CSGO before. So it was [always] possible for us [to win], but I'm happy we did it.”
“I was really excited to get my team to play in the showcase tournament,” says Szygulski who fell at the hands of Houssein in the final. “We wanted to win. Filip ‘NEO’ Kubski and Wiktor ‘TaZ’ Wojtas have been top tier CSGO players for years now so you wouldn't expect less from them, while Piotr ‘Izak’ Skowyrski, Mateusz ‘PAGO’ Pągowski and me have played competitive shooters for years as well, but obviously not on such a high level as them. But with such a team we never aimed less than for the first place, so to be honest, we actually are disappointed we didn't win.”
The tournament gave us a first look at potential high-level play within Valorant. It is, of course, not going to be anything close to the kind of thing we can expect when the game is fully established and big tournaments are taking place, but getting a chance to see how top level players from other titles tackled the game was fascinating nonetheless.
While most of the strategies involved in this opening-day tournament were quite basic, there were more than a few occasions where we saw some incredible team play that we’d never have thought to try in matchmaking. It also gave us a chance to see how teams decided to attack the sites in inventive ways and generally try to use some more complex, coordinated approaches than you might typically while playing with randoms online. While we were impressed at how the teams played together and the strategies they used, it turns out that for the most part they were just winging it – some players do just operate on a higher instinctive level.
Gotaga is now a Valorant champion
© Chloé Ramdani/Red Bull Content Pool
“We didn't really use tactics yet, but I think we were having a good team that knows how to communicates in game, and [had] a good shotcaller, that's very important in a game like this,” says Houssein. “If you've never played CSGO, and you’re still waiting for your beta access on Valorant, use your time training aim and spray on CSGO; it's not the same but it will probably help you, because CSGO players are really comfortable on Valorant.”
It wasn’t just Gotaga’s team who followed this strategy, with LotharHS admitting that his team effectively relied on their skills from other titles to carry them through the competition.
“I think it was mainly just firepower,” says Szygulski. “We literally didn't spend a single minute training as a five stack because of other obligations, so we couldn’t come up with anything cool when it comes to utility usage. [We were like] shoot first, use abilities later. But I’m looking forward to doing that in the future.”
Regardless of how much or how little the teams prepared for the competition and how close they were to actually pushing the game to its limits, there’s no doubt that this tournament was enjoyable for all. Viewers got to see a new game in the hands of top players for the first time live, and the players themselves got to show off their skills and have fun with a new game that seems to have a lot going for it right now. When you have over a million people wanting to get access to play, you know the game must be doing something right.
LotharHS thinks this is just the start for Valorant as an esport
© G2 Esports
“For me personally, [Valorant’s] got great fundamentals – really good netcode, great sound system and competitive map/graphic design,” says Szygulski. “I really like the minimalist graphics and cool ideas that won’t fit in the realistic tactical shooters. Riot will have a wide array of features to implement in the next maps because of that. They have a lot of artistic freedom here when it comes to the maps and champions design. It’s a very clever approach.”
“It's a new game, it's exciting for me because I have many things to learn on this game, it's really different from Call of Duty or Fortnite, and it's really cool to learn how to play a new game,” adds Houssein.
“It's like a new challenge for me because I still want to create fun content with a good level. I really love the game, I think it won't be like Fortnite because the game’s more difficult and only on PC' at the moment, so I think it's more for ‘hardcore gamers’. But knowing how Riot works I'm pretty sure we will have many content updates and a real competitive system in game – for me that's a must have on games in 2020.”
It’s impossible to tell exactly how Valorant will shape up as an esport, but there’s no doubt that this first tournament was a success and hopefully a sign that the future is bright. There’s a lot to build on with this, and who knows, maybe we’ll see other Team Vitality and G2 Esports stars in the final of more Valorant tournaments in the future.
