Meet the first 2 qualifiers for Nerd Street’s VALORANT Summer Champs

Nerd Street Gamers’ Summer Championship qualifiers are officially underway as teams look to qualify in VALORANT, Apex Legends, League of Legends, Rainbow Six: Siege and Rocket League.

When August rolls around, the qualified teams in each game will have a chance to take home some of Nerd Street Gamers’ biggest prizes of the year. Players and teams in North America can compete right now by entering NSG’s weekly and monthly tournaments to start accumulating points.

As VALORANT tournaments are ongoing, some teams have begun qualifying by becoming one of the top two teams in monthly qualifiers. The first two teams who qualified for the VALORANT Summer Championships by making the finals of the April Monthly are Renegades and Susquehanna Soniqs.

Renegades

Renegades have consistently been the top team in Nerd Street Gamers’ qualifying events with a commanding point total that was three times greater than the next closest team headed into the April Monthly. With an outright win at the first April Monthly, the Renegades were the first team to lock up a spot in the VALORANT Summer Championship.

Renegades signed the team’s core roster in June of 2020 and have consistently shown talent in a variety of events. The roster is made up of Chuck “Cp2” Proud, Ryan “Winsum” Johns, Devin “randyySavage” Breard, Alexander “retrQ” Kadan, and Roy “Roy” Ahad.

Roy, whose alternate gamertag is “StrongLegs, is the only Renegades player to join in 2021, since that addition the team has been winning consistently including the first three Nerd Street opens for Summer Champs. Once reaching the bracket stage of the April Monthly, Renegades dropped only one map en route to the team’s title and first-place prize of $2,500.

Susquehanna Soniqs

After a tough semifinal matchup with SoaR that saw the Soniqs give up an 11-2 advantage on the first map leading to a 1-0 SoaR lead, the Soniqs bounced back in winning the next two maps. That win was all the Soniqs needed to lock up a spot in August for the Summer Champs.

In the finals, the Soniqs ran into Renegades, an opponent they are quite familiar with at this point. Although Renegades have swept the qualifying tournaments up until this point, the Soniqs are the only team giving them consistent trouble. The Soniqs have been Renegades’ opponents in two open finals and now in the April Monthly final as well. So far, all three of those matches have ended with defeat for the Soniqs, but they’ve all been close to the end.

The April Monthly was no different as it went all three maps, the first time any team in the bracket stage took a map off Renegades.

The Susquehanna Soniqs, despite being named after a river in Pennsylvania, have an entirely Australian roster. Formerly competing as EXO Clan, the roster of Bob “Bob” Tran, Iyengaran “IyeN” Raju, Chris “pl1xx” Li, Kyran “dizzyLife” Crombie and Ethan “Crunchy” Laker became the Soniqs’ first VALORANT roster on April 1. The five-man squad has been playing together since VALORANT’s release and are set to represent the power of the Oceania region in NA VALORANT.

Upcoming Summer Championships qualifiers

Teams can continue to earn points and prize money next week with the fourth Open Qualifier on May 3-4. Thirty-two teams will be back in a new bracket fighting for qualification points. With the two top teams in points already qualified, the rest of the point ladder just got a lot more interesting. You can find out how all the teams looking to qualify for Summer Champs stack up in Nerd Street’s points leaderboard.