From underdogs to underestimated, how Rise shattered expectations in VALORANT NA LCQ

At the bottom of just about any power ranking entering the VALORANT North American Last Chance Qualifier, you’ll likely find Rise.

But that’s not the picture Rise painted once the tournament started and they suddenly started beating teams that were at the top of those same power rankings. Even we labeled them a “longshot” in our pre-tournament primer on NA teams.

Rise’s run through LCQ

Two weeks ago, Rise’s run got off to a rough start after COVID-19 forced their match with FaZe and subsequently the rest of the tournament to be postponed. In addition to COVID, competitive integrity issues had plagued the first day of the tournament leading Rise and other coaches of the teams that were meant to play in Los Angeles opposing the solution Riot came up with to allow play to continue.

We finally saw Rise enter the server this week as the LCQ resumed, and Rise walked away with a 2-1 victory over FaZe. To be fair, no one expected FaZe to win the tournament, but they were considered contenders, and certainly the clear expected winner in the match against Rise.

FaZe went on to lose in their lower bracket match, while Rise went on to face one of the higher ranked teams in the tournament, Cloud9 Blue. Although they just recently became a bigger contender due to their acquisition of Anthony “vanity” Malaspina who transferred over from Version1, they were well on their way to becoming the top contender to take on 100 Thieves in the upper bracket final.

Problem is, Cloud9 never made it to the upper bracket final, because they lost to Rise 2-1. More impressive is the score on the last map on Haven, which Rise took 13-4. After that win, they went on to play in the upper bracket final against 100T, and they put up a damn good fight.

The first map was won by Rise 13-11 on Breeze, and then 100T answered back with a 13-10 win on Ascent. What’s most intriguing about that is Breeze was 100T’s map pick, and Ascent was Rise’s map pick. Absolutely nothing about this game was predictable, and the third map, which was 100T’s pick, Haven, went in Rise’s favor as well, 13-11.

Rise came out of nowhere, or did they?

So how did Rise get so good so fast? The five members of the team have only been together since July when Phat “supamen” Le joined the team.

“Honestly, ever since we picked up supaman, we've been saying that we can be the best we can be, literally the best team in North America.” Ryan "Shanks" Ngo told Nerd Street in a post-match interview. “It's all about how much work we put in and try to cut out all the little mistakes. And every single day we strive to become a better team. And I feel like everybody tries their hardest in practice. And nobody really shames each other for doing any misplays. And I feel like our team's only going to get better.”

Teams definitely underestimated them in the tournament as well. Multiple pros told Nerd Street that they still considered Rise the underdogs in the beginning of the tournament, but that sentiment has changed over the course of the tournament.

“If you think about it, all of us just randomly came out of nowhere, like none of us came from a big team. Oh, actually, I came from NRG, but everyone was just, like, a nobody, who just came into the team. And we're now, we're just slaying,” Shanks said.

Rise is a team full of surprises, and many might not know that Shanks and IGL Kevin “poised” Ngo are brothers. Many siblings loathe having their older sibling dictating all of the shots, but that’s the dynamic that Shanks has to deal with when his older brother is his IGL.

“Since my brother is my in-game-leader I know that he just, he doesn't care if I do anything that looks stupid on stream or anything because he knows that I think that I have a play. He has so much confidence in me as a player. It just makes me feel way more free. Even if I'm like 0-10 in the game, I'll still go for the picks that I'll go for because he put so much confidence in me to do things I want to do,” Shanks said.

On Sunday, Rise will play in the NA LCQ grand final for a chance to be the last team to qualify for Champions. They will play either 100T, XSET or C9 depending on how the lower bracket goes on Saturday. This time, whoever plays them surely won’t be underestimating their ability to rise to the occasion.

Lead photo credit: Rise