Another week, another list of stories in the Valorant world.
The biggest news of the week includes a new patch, new game mode, and some updates to the VCT Masters 2 lineup. Let's get into it.
Patch 2.09: Viper nerf & new mode
The biggest in-game news of the week revolved around patch 2.09. Along with bringing some new skins to the game, Riot added a new game mode and adjusted Viper's over-tuned Toxin passive.
The new mode, Replication, forces your entire team to play as one agent in a Spike Rush-style format. It's certainly fun and a welcome break from sweaty competitive play but probably won't go any farther than a novelty mode that Riot remove at some point.
Viper was the only agent to receive a significant balance update this patch. Now, instead of receiving 50 decay damage when walking through her smoke, you only take 30 damage - still punishing, but not as overpowered as it certainly was before the update.
Riot Games
All Masters 2 teams are in!
This week saw Brazil and Latin American lock in their finalists for VCT Masters 2 in Iceland. Now, all ten teams are ready to battle it out on the biggest Valorant stage to date.
In Brazil, Team Vikings and Sharks Exports both made it to the Grand Finals, ensuring their spots in Iceland. The LATAM region only gets one spot, which went to KRÜ Esports, who edged out the victory over Infinity in the Grand Finals.
You can take a look at all of the qualified teams here.
Roster shakeups
For the rest of the teams who didn't make the Masters, it's time to go back to the drawing board.
We've seen a lot of roster shuffles over the past week in every region, from TSM and Team Vitality parting ways with coaches to Team Liquid officially releasing ec1s, who was benched earlier in the year.
These won't be the last roster changes we see ahead of Stage 3, so make sure to stay tuned for more Valorant Esports news.
TSM
