Chamber emerges during NA VCT Challengers open qualifier

The first open qualifier for Stage 1 of the North American VALORANT Champions Tour is over. With a 128-team bracket, new players on many teams and two new agents, the open qualifier was a good glimpse of what the 2022 VCT season might look like. Of course, there was plenty of intriguing drama surrounding the T1-TSM match, but beyond that there was plenty of exciting play throughout the weekend. Here’s a look back at some key statistical takeaways from the first open qualifier.

Top fraggers

Taking a look at the top players (according to ACS, Average Combat Score) in the open qualifier you’ll see some familiar names as well as some fresh faces. Using VLR.gg and filtering by players who competed in at least 180 rounds will show players who sustained a high level of play on teams that made it into the top 32 of the 128-team bracket.

Of course, FaZe Clan’s Andrej "babybay" Francisty and TSM’s Matthew "Wardell" Yu jump out as players among the top 10. Wardell played exclusively on Chamber rather than the ever-popular Jett. Prior to the release of Chamber, Wardell like many other duelists mainly played Jett. Clearly, Wardell is just as deadly on the new agent. This qualifier was the first glimpse we got at Chamber play in a high-level NA competition. More on Chamber later.

The player who stood out above everyone else though is Matthew "Cryocells" Panganiban, XSET’s offseason addition who led everybody in the open qualifier with an ACS of 291.5 and a K/D of 1.67 in 246 rounds played. Unsurprisingly, he did this all while playing everyone’s duelist of choice, Jett. The third player among the top 10 stands out because he achieved a 269.7 ACS while playing Viper and Astra, not Jett. Alexander "Zander" Dituri was Version1’s offseason addition, and like Cryocells, he left SoaR, which clearly lost a couple of gems as both players head to the Stage 1 main event on their latest teams.

Here’s the complete top 10 list:

1. Matthew "Cryocells" Panganiban - 291.5
2. Kyle "ScrewFace" Jensen - 283.4
3. Alexander "Zander" Dituri - 269.7
4. Sam "s0m" Oh - 264.4
5. Devon "randyySavage" Bréard - 261.8
6. GianFranco "koalanoob" Potestio - 256.9
7. Andrej "babybay" Francisty - 256.1
8. Diondre "YaBoiDre" Bond - 255.9
9. Jordan "Zellsis" Montemurro - 253.5
10. Matthew “Wardell” Yu - 251.4

Chamber emerges

As alluded to above, Chamber emerged during the open qualifier; he was the fifth-most picked agent with a pick rate of 44%. That pick rate was only behind Sova (83%), Jett (74%), Astra (66%) and Viper (58%). His pick rate was particularly high on Breeze and Icebox. These maps are particularly favorable toward snipers and the best to take advantage of Chamber’s ultimate ability, a sniper rifle that will land an instant kill with one shot on an opponent.

In addition to Wardell, T1’s Josh “steel” Nissan and NRG’s Bradley "ANDROID" Fodor also used Chamber effectively. Steel and ANDROID had the fifth and sixth-best ACS, respectively, among players who used Chamber for at least 100 rounds. Cloud9 White’s Melanie "meL" Capone and XSET’s Rory "dephh" Jackson each played Chamber on one map and dominated.

What about Neon?

Despite all the hype around the release of Neon a few weeks ago, Neon found herself among Yoru, Brimstone, Omen and Phoenix as one of the tournament’s least played agents -- she ended up only being used by Akrew’s Eric "Kanpeki" Xu on Fracture. Kanpeki achieved an ACS of 318.7 and a KD of 1.65 across 63 rounds. Akrew fell just short of qualifying, so if Akrew doesn’t make it through the second open qualifier -- and no other teams decide to run Neon -- we might not see much of the new agent in the eventual main event.

Lead image credit: Riot Games