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

Cloud9 White solidified their place atop the women’s VALORANT competitive scene after a 3-0 victory over CLG Red in the VCT Game Changers grand final on Sunday.

The two teams clashed again in a rematch mirroring their VCT Game Changers Series 1 grand final matchup.

C9 didn’t have an easy bracket. Both TSM and Shopify Rebellion were potential roadblocks to C9’s upper bracket run, but in true C9 White fashion, they didn’t drop a map for the entirety of the main event.

“Shopify I think was our best opponent and for the matches with TSM, I think it was more just kind of us beating ourselves. And I feel like we would have closed it out in a more dominant fashion if we didn’t beat ourselves in that game,” Melanie “meL” Capone said in a press conference after the match.

The 3-0 grand final scoreline doesn’t look close, but it wasn’t easy for C9. Split ended 13-11 and Ascent was 13-9, but Icebox was a more decisive win for C9 White, ending 13-6.

C9 went into the match quite confident, and their confidence translated into their dominant gameplay.

“We definitely went into it thinking we're gonna 3-0, we're gonna win," meL said. "We wanted to make it a 3-0, we don't want to drop a single map because before there was like a [best-of-five] with a map advantage, and so it was really important for us to really make a statement and not drop a map. Don't let them have the excuse that, ‘oh, well, last time they had a map advantage.’ … No, we wanted to make it very clear that we're here to dominate all three maps.”

Both CLG Red and C9 had some roster moves going into this match. Kaitlin “Keiti” Boop was released from the roster between Series 1 and 2 for C9, and Claudia “Clawdia” Che was a stand-in for CLG Red in Series 2.

Despite C9 White losing a player and CLG Red adding one, both teams had very similar results in Series 1 and Series 2. CLG Red had a near identical run through the lower bracket, and C9 didn’t drop a map this time either.

C9 are now looking to compete in the main VALORANT Champions Tour events and competing against rosters with both men and women.

“If you want to be better than us, you have to compete against people who are better than us. And you can't do that just playing in the like, a women's only weekend. Play against better teams,” katsumi said.

There are a few teams signed up to participate in the VCT Challengers Stage 3 tournaments in addition to C9, and they couldn’t be happier to see those teams signed up alongside them.

“For me, it's also really interesting because I want to play them in these tournaments, too,” meL said. “I don't want to just meet them every five months, whatever, however long it takes for Game Changers, you know, it'd be great to see the rivalry continue in the open circuit tournaments, like maybe we get them in our bracket, it's our side of the bracket and be open calls and we continue the rivalry, or we just have another female team to cheer for,” meL said.

Fans wanting to catch another glimpse of some of these all-women teams can check out the VCT Stage 3 Challengers open qualifiers which begin this weekend.

Lead image credit: Cloud9