Envy set to play Acend after opening win at VALORANT Champions

Update: This article originally stated that Envy would play Vivo Keyd, but a subsequent competitive ruling by Riot Games in the Vivo Keyd-Acend matchup has resulted in Acend being declared the winner moving on to face Envy.

Day 3 of VALORANT Champions wrapped up with Envy winning 2-0 against Southeast Asian team X10 CRIT.

Envy’s win sets up a a match against Europe's Acend on Saturday.

Although they beat X10 by comfortable scores of 13-8 and 13-7, the teams looked evenly matched during the first halves of both games. X10 started Map 1 on a 3-0 run and the map was 6-6 at halftime, and Envy led only 7-5 at the half of Map 2.

Crashies explained that a lack of information about the team might have been part of the problem early on.

“We just had not a lot of info on them as a team,” he said. “They were kind of trolling their matches back in their region … so we just kind of had to feel them out and learn what they were doing as the game went on.”

Photo credit: Riot Games

Envy’s new coach Chet "Chet" Singh thought it might have just been some first-match jitters and figuring out how X10 were using KAY/O.

“We just had to figure out what the knife is doing and then our set-up gets a lot easier,” Chet said.

Envy didn’t have a coach during Masters: Berlin, so that’s been the biggest change for the team heading into Champions.

“I think Chet has had a tremendous impact on us,” crashies said. “He’s really insane with running practice, adding new strats, finding new darts for me. He’s also really good with calling timeouts in the game.

Another difference for the Masters: Berlin runners-up -- at least for their first match -- was having to play from their hotel rather than on stage. As a result of Victor “victor” Wong testing positive for COVID, both Envy and X10 played their match on a LAN server that Riot Game set up at teams’ hotel.

The change in venue didn’t seem to faze Envy though.

“It definitely sucks that we had to play at the hotel just because I think we strive as a stage team, but we don’t let it affect us that bad,” crashies said. “It does suck for Victor because he’s kind of isolated in a room and can’t really celebrate.”

Chet thought the team was doing well mentally despite not getting to play on stage. They’ll presumably play against Acend on Saturday from the hotel once again. If they win, they’ll advance to the playoffs of VALORANT Champions, which start Wednesday.

Lead photo credit: Riot Games