The most entertaining onstage moments from VALORANT pros at Masters

There was plenty to be excited for when Masters Reykjavík started. Teams got their first shot at competitive offline play at what fans have dubbed IceLAN.

What fans weren’t quite expecting was the level of energy and fun the in-person event would bring, which made for some hilarious moments caught on camera.

While this entire article could be an ode to Fnatic’s Jake “Boaster” Howlett and all of his on-camera antics, there were many players who showed off their personalities away from the computer screen.

Here is a look at some of the most entertaining onstage moments that occurred during Masters.

Photo credit: Riot Games

Intros

The moments teams walked onto the stage were a prime time for players to goof off and have a good time. Plenty of teams participated in the fun and entertained the viewers at home by doing anything but a normal walk onto the stage.

There are ample clips to choose from to display just how creative teams got when coming onto the stage, but the walk-in from Fnatic and X10 was one of the most clipped. Boaster and X10 player Patiphan “Patiphan” Chaiwong came onto the stage with such energy that the camera crew could barely keep up with them.

In the same vein, V1 and Fnatic also had fun walking in with each other. Even V1’s coach Ian “Immi” Harding played along. They took a scene from Dodgeball and molded their entrance dance around the Purple Cobras from the movie.

Photo credit: Riot Games

TenZ pointing out the obvious

Still on loan to Sentinels from Cloud9, Tyson “TenZ” Ngo was one of the players to watch throughout the tournament.

Although TenZ had some goofy answers from time to time in interviews, he is a more reserved than players like Boaster or Patiphan. It seems TenZ saves his energy for the game only, but he has a few quips here and there, as he did in this clip, where he pointed out the obvious when someone cheered for him.

Photo credit: Riot Games

Patiphan’s magic trick

Technical pauses were rampant in the first few days of the tournament and players and fans alike were bored and looking for something to do, so Patiphan took the opportunity to entertain the fans still watching.

The pause for X10’s match against Team Vikings was quite long. Camera crews often turn to the players to do something interesting while the staff figure out the problem, so Patiphan took it upon himself to do a magic trick with his hand warmer to help entertain fans during the pause.

His fatal mistake was not realizing that the camera angles hadn’t switched yet, so he did end up revealing the secret behind his magic, but fans were still entertained anyway. Perhaps Patiphan should just stick to VALORANT.

Photo credit: Riot Games

Version1 cat ears cut off

Version1 had a good run in the tournament, but they did end up losing to NUTURN Gaming who sent them into the lower bracket.

At the end of the match, NUTURN celebrated by ceremoniously cutting off Anthony “vanity” Malaspina’s signature V1 cat ears, which are some velcro attachments to his headphones that are actually upside-down V1 logos.

NUTURN didn’t end up making it to the grand final, but their celebration was one of the best moments of the entire tournament.

Photo credit: Riot Games

Fnatic’s celebrations

There is no doubt that Fnatic are the best team in the world at coming up with postmatch celebrations. Although they didn’t win the grand final, the team had some clever celebrations that fans were excited to see.

Unfortunately, fans won’t get to see what they would have done if they had won the grand final. In a postmatch press conference, Boaster wouldn’t reveal what they had planned and instead were going to save it in case they won the next Masters, or even the Champions tournament.

The NA and EU rivalry is a great storyline, and Fnatic took full advantage of that when they sent V1 home. They got into an airplane formation and waved goodbye as if they were the NA team leaving Iceland.

Boaster acted as the flight attendant, and the rest of the team acted as the passengers on their flight home from Iceland.

The Voice is a very popular reality TV show that airs in many countries including many European countries, so it was only fitting that when Fnatic won their match against X10, they recreated the show.

Boaster started singing behind his teammates who all had their chairs turned away from him, and one by one they started hitting imaginary buttons and turning around to face him. In the end, Boaster jumped up and down with excitement and the team ended the celebration with fist bumps.

Another celebration worth noting is the revival of the entire team after they had fallen to the floor. Domagoj “Doma” Francev came around to revive all of his teammates as Sage after a victory over NUTURN Gaming.

Honorable mentions

There were many other memorable moments of players doing goofy things in front of the camera that made this tournament so much fun to watch.

In the honorable mentions is a sudden heat-of-the-moment dance from Shahzen “ShahZaM” Khan, and a dance from V1 in celebration after they sent Team Liquid to the lower bracket in what was arguably the biggest upset of the tournament.

VALORANT fans have waited nearly a year for the game’s first in-person event due to the pandemic, but they won’t have to wait quite as long for the next offline event. The next time we’ll get to see players onstage will likely be at Masters Berlin in September.

Lead image credit: Riot Games