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VALORANT Champions: Acend beats Gambit and becomes champion

From a controversial start, to an overpowering sequence and the title!

Acend is the grand champion of the VALORANT Champions. The team had an extremely troubled start of the championship after controversies with Vivo Keyd, but since then has proved to be overwhelming in the competition, swept the playoffs without losing any map and made a duel worthy of the final against Gambit, beating the Russian team by 3-2, by comeback.

Gambit

  • Chronicled
  • 3ffo
  • Sheydos
  • nAts
  • Redgar
  • Engh (trainer)

Acend

  • BONECOLD
  • cNed
  • Kiles
  • starxo
  • zeek
  • Nbs (trainer)

The Maps

Breeze

The first map started with an almost absolute Acend on the defensive side, opening an incredible 9-1 gap. Only in the last two rounds Gambit woke up and decreased to 9-3.

In the second half not only the sides reversed, but also the game dominance. Since the first round Gambit started to dominate the match, they were unaware of the enemy attack and scored 10-2, totaling a come-from-behind victory of 13-11.

Ascent

As in Breeze, once again Acend had a better start and scored 7-2. This time, however, the Russian reaction came early and Gambit redeemed itself in 7-5.

At the turn of the sides Acend was again in charge and did not suffer any points until the match point of 12 to 5. When the match was over, Gambit resisted for two rounds, but soon succumbed in 12 to 7.

Fracture

In Fracture the wave of elastic scoring that was hovering over the match showed up again, but in Gambit's favor. With an extremely cohesive, well-researched, and almost flawless attack, Gambit only lost one point before shooting 11-1.

Visibly down, it took only four rounds for Acend to fall in 13-3.

Icebox

Despite the tough loss it suffered in Fracture and being one map away from losing the series, Acend managed to reset to Icebox, made an even start to the half against Gambit and soon took the reins of the match and pulled away at 7-3. Gambit, however, did not allow their opponents to advance any further and went into the next half on 7-5.

In a duel worthy of a final, Gambit came back well to the game, turned in 10 to 8, but Acend ran after and left everything tied again at 10 to 10. In the last rounds Gambit came out ahead, reaching the 12th point first, but saw Acend tie and take the game to overtime.

In the overtime Acend was absolute in the only two rounds played and got the better in 14-12.

Split

The public witnessed in the Split a kind of repetition of what had been happening until then. Acend started better at 6-1 on defense, but Gambit used all its experience to adapt well to the enemy setup and run after the loss, falling behind only at 7-5.

In the second half, despite Gambit not surrendering, it was Acend that continued to dictate the pace of the game. Most of the rounds were evenly matched, but it was always BONECOLD and company who won the key moments and clutches. This is how the game went on until the end, with a 13 to 8 victory, and 3 to 2 in the series.

Championship

The VALORANT Champions took place between December 1 and 12 and was played by 16 select participants – among them the Brazilian representatives Vikings, Vivo Keyd and FURIA. The total prize pool at stake was US$1 million – approximately R$5.63 million – and the final standings were as follows:

1st place: Acend
2nd place: Gambit
3rd/4th place: Liquid and KRU
5th/8th place: Fnatic, Cloud9, Team Secret and X10
9th/12th place: Vikings, Sentinels, Envy and Vision Strikers
13/16th place: Keyd, FURIA, Crazy Raccoon and FULL SENSE

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