CLG Red, XSET Female break down their first LAN experiences
by Jessica Scharnagle
The offseason for VALORANT has been buzzing with third-party tournaments, and some have even held LANs, such as Nerd Street’s Winter Championship series.
In the past couple months, teams have come from around the country to compete at Nerd Street’s new facility, The Block. Among them were women’s teams, including CLG Red, XSET’s all-women team, Cloud9 White and more.
Since the 2021 Game Changers tournament series didn’t hold any LAN tournaments, the Winter Championship has been the first time many of these women’s teams got a chance to compete in-person. Nerd Street caught up with some members of XSET and CLG Red to get their perspectives on participating in LAN events for the first time since the pandemic started.
Before they could even attend the event, they had to travel, and according to some of the participants, that was where they had the most trouble.
“My flight got delayed an hour because there was an unknown mechanical issue,” Ellie “EllieTwitches” Garland of XSET said. “Then that made me miss my connecting flight. So I had to reschedule it for three hours later. And when that thing came in, I had to wait another 45 minutes because they were changing a tire. And I was just so tired and out of it.”
Once they got to the venue, it seemed like the travel was worth it. Players especially noted that the PCs Nerd Street uses were impressive, and they loved playing on them.
“It's really awesome that the setup is really clean,” Carolyn “ArtstaR” Noquez said of The Block. “240 hertz monitors, everything is standard. Exactly what we need as professional players. So it's really great that they provide everything up to standard.”
There is a big difference these days to playing at a LAN event after COVID-19 interrupted a lot of in-person events, but for the most part, people are excited to get back to these events, even if they have to wear a mask.
CLG Red’s Benita “bENITA” Novshadian has been to several LAN events herself, and said that the masking situation did make it harder to play and coordinate with her team.
“Playing with masks is really annoying. It's not ideal at all,” bENITA said. “Especially with background noise as well. So it already doesn't sound as in like, don't get to enunciate as much as you want, and even if you're trying, maybe someone doesn't hear you that well.”
Even though the travel wasn’t great, and wearing masks isn’t ideal, everyone Nerd Street spoke to was excited to see their teammates.
“The whole objective of this was just to kind of get my team excited. Actually it was like my team's first time meeting each other, too. So I just wanted to expose them to a LAN environment and all of us to bond together outside of practice as well, which is still something that's really important in a team environment,” bENITA said.
After the excitement of meeting their teammates, some of whom were meeting for the first time, then came the meat of the trip, the competition.
“I had jitters.” said Ariane "ARIANARCHIST" Lafrenière, who was playing for XSET at the time. “For the first time, I felt very, very nervous. I had to get my s--- together for deathmatch, and get back into it, so that was good, but I did not expect myself to get nervous. … So I was nervous for the first map, but got it together.”
Although both CLG Red and XSET didn’t make it out of groups at the tournament, both teams felt that the LAN experience was something they needed. It’s something they are hoping to get back to, especially with the Game Changers tournaments happening in 2022, and the potential to participate in a global Game Changers LAN at the end of the year.
XSET’s coach, Daniel “Ducky” Duong felt that the team did well, although there is always room for improvement. Having their first LAN under their belts will likely help each participant going forward for future LAN events.
“I think we have something to work off of going into the next LAN whenever that may be, but we are hoping for some more definitely in 2022,” Ducky said.
Since the pandemic is unpredictable and makes it difficult to hold in-person events, it’s unclear when XSET or CLG Red will get their next shot at a LAN. What is clear is that the experience at Nerd Street’s Winter Championship tournament was helpful to them as a team, and as individual players.
All photo courtesy of Nerd Street.