Others disagree, but CLG Red confident they’re second-best women’s VALORANT team

C9 White is the best women’s VALORANT team in North America and likely the world. But right behind them, CLG Red has taken out every other team to be C9 White’s challenger in the final of both of the VCT Game Changers events.

“The narrative of last Game Changers was Moon Raccoons and the narrative this time was again Moon Raccoons, who are now Shopify Rebellion,” said Benita “bENITA” Novshadian after the finals loss. “We’ve made the finals of every Game Changers tournament, so I’m not sure why the narrative about our team is so negative. We’re consistent and we deserve to be in the finals.”

BENITA, a longtime Counter-Strike:Global Offensive veteran and the IGL for CLG Red, is right. Even though CLG Red didn’t take a map off C9 White in either Game Changer final, Fnatic didn’t take a map off Sentinels in the final of VCT’s Stage 2 Masters, the narrative around Fnatic after that match certainly wasn’t negative. So where does the narrative come from? According to bENITA, it’s being started by their rivals.

Read more: C9 White meL says team wanted to ‘make a statement’ with 3-0 Game Changers final

“After the last Game Changers, in the live interview, [C9 White] had a player go on and say basically we didn’t deserve to be there and Moon Raccoons were the better team,” bENITA said. “I thought that was a messed up thing to say, that it was really unprofessional. What she did on that live broadcast really shot our narrative down. We worked really hard to make it to the finals that time and now we did it again.”

The C9 White player who said that the first time was Kaitlin “Keiti” Boop who is no longer with the team after being released due to a blackmail incident involving VALORANT observer mel. Even with Keiti off the team though, C9 White is still adamant that now-Shopify Rebellion is the second-best female team in VALORANT.

“It makes sense that [bENITA] wants her team to get credit,” said Chris “Dream” Myrick, the coach of C9 White, after the win. “But just from watching the teams, prepping against the teams, playing against the teams over multiple months we are very aware of the strengths and weaknesses of different teams. I genuinely think it’s not very close between Shopify and whoever you want to put in third place.”

Shopify Rebellion did take one map off C9 White in the qualifiers to this Game Changers and played well throughout this tournament. Shopify did beat CLG Red in the upper bracket but then lost to the team in the lower bracket final 2-0. What’s most surprising about C9 White’s insistence on Shopify being second best is the score of the two teams' upper bracket matchup.

C9 White beat Shopify Rebellion 13-2, 13-4. That round differential is tied for the most lopsided of any match in the entire tournament. The only other defeat so lopsided was C9 White’s first round matchup against an unsigned team in NOTHING2LOSE. In comparison, CLG Red narrowly lost the first map of the grand final 13-11. It snowballed from there, but no map was as bad as either one of Shopify’s.

For CLG Red, one of the winningest teams in women’s CS:GO events, the narrative still has plenty of time to develop. With this tournament being the last big event played on the previous VALORANT patch, plenty of things could change by the next edition of VCT Game Changers.

“The new patch definitely feels better,” bENITA said. “I think VALORANT really toned it down. The abilities on the patch we are playing right now are just so overpowered. I’m not going to say it benefits me specifically because I played CS but I’ve definitely enjoyed this patch more than any other in VALORANT’s first year.”

A meta change could be needed to disrupt C9 White’s reign because it doesn’t seem to be coming any other way. CLG Red does have one other handicap as well, the team still doesn’t have a fifth player and hasn’t had one for all of 2021. For the first Game Changers, the team had Annie “AnieMal” Lee stand-in. She competed for GX3 in this event. At this tournament, Evil Geniuses’ Claudia “Clawdia” Che was the stand-in, and she played well for the team, finishing with the top ACS in the grand final.

“At first, when I was running the team, I was looking for girls with CS experience,” bENITA said. “That was the biggest thing for me. But we moved really, really slow on this when it comes to completing our roster. It’s been six months now. Hopefully now that this [Game Changers series] is over, we can figure things out.”

Another grand final appearance wasn’t enough to change the narrative coming from C9 White around their top rival in the women’s scene. For CLG Red, another tournament ends in defeat but on results alone, the team is the second-best for VCT Game Changers -- even if C9 White’s coach disagrees.

Lead image credit: Counter Logic Gaming