The 2022 Valorant season is officially underway with one week of NA competition behind us.
We saw a couple surprises, this week, along with reinforcement of what we already thought about some teams.
Here are our biggest takeaways after one week of the Stage 1 NA Group Stage.
Riot Games
Sentinels struggle for the W
Have Sentintels fallen off?
It's a legitimate question. They underperformed at Champions and now struggle to get the win against a beatable - albeit strong - NRG team.
With only one game, it's hard to say whether NRG is better than we thought or if Sentinels are underperforming expectations. The latter got the win, but only after three close games and a loss on Fracture.
It could be noise, but word on the street is that Sentinels haven't been scrimming for a long time. It might come back to bite them, but it's too early to say for sure.
Sentinels
100T need more reps
100 Thieves was considered one of the best teams in NA for the better part of 2021, but some roster restructuring seems to have set them back - at least, for now.
With Sentinels declining a bit, Cloud9 is arguably the best team in the region right now - so we can't fault 100T too hard for losing the toughest week 1 matchup in NA.
Still, after a hard loss on Breeze and with newcomers ec1s and BabyJ at the bottom of the leaderboard, it seems like this 100T team needs some more work before breaking through.
Rise looking like the sleeper pick
The biggest upset of the week came from Rise, who were able to take out OpTic Gaming in the latter's first match after switching over from Team Envy.
Envy - as they were called last year - was one of NA's Champions representatives, and looked to ride that momentum into 2022.
Rise put a stop to that with a hard-fought series.
Considering Rise made it to the Grand Final of the 2021 LCQ, we can't be too surprised. So far, though, it looks like the Rise boys are taking a step forward in 2022.
LG is who we thought they were
In our NA VCT power rankings, we put LG at the bottom of the pack. After one match against The Guard, it feels like we made the right decision.
Thankfully for the LG boys, they were able to avoid the shutout by winning one defensive round on Haven - finishing 1-13.
To their credit, LG brought it to overtime on Fracture, which shows some resilience on their part.
Still, I wouldn't be surprised if LG make it out of this one without winning a match. It is what it is for LG fans, right now.
