VALORANT Champions Day 1 recap

VALORANT Champions begins today, with some of the more interesting matchups to come.

We started things a bit slow, with the Match of the Day coming in the late window as Fnatic faced Cloud9.

Here’s a brief recap of what happened in all of the day one matchups: Vision Strikers vs Full Sense, Crazy Raccoon vs Team Vikings, and Fnatic vs Cloud9.

Riot Games

Eu 1 – NA 0

The best match of the day was the first battle of EU and NA, where Cloud9 and Fnatic fought for the upper hand in Group D.

Both Icebox and Split were extremely close, with each team trading 13-11 maps.

It all came down to the first Fracture matchup in Champs. Initially, it looked like Fnatic would run away with it.

Eventually, Cloud9 battled back and brought it to overtime, but Fnatic took the two overtime rounds and sent C9 to the lower bracket.

Brazil is here!

A first round matchup of Brazil’s Team Vikings and Japan’s Crazy Raccoons saw two of the historically weaker Valorant regions battle to move on in their group. 

Group C is one of the easier groups to make it through, so either one of these teams has a puncher’s chance of making it to Playoffs.

At least for now, Brazil is on top. They took a 2-0 win from CR, 13-9 on Icebox and 13-8 on Haven.

Vision Strikers predictably 2-0 Full Sense

Vision Strikers are one of the stronger teams in the tournament – not a favorite, but a strong contender expected to make it to playoffs.

Full Sense is an APAC LCQ qualifier that has no experience at LAN.

This match went about the way you’d expect. Vision Strikers won 13-5 on both Haven and Breeze to 2-0 Full Sense and send them to the lower bracket.