Team Absolute JUPITER, a squad of ex-CS:GO players, dominated the Japanese VALORANT tournament RAGE Invitational today.
Absolute JUPITER crushed every opponent in their path, refusing to give up more than one round per match in their first three sets. They swiftly defeated the likes of AVALON Gaming, SunSister Rapid, and Nora-Rengo to cement a spot in the grand finals.
Lag Gaming, though not as dominant in their tournament run, awaited JUPITER in the title match. Lag most notably defeated BAKUMON in the semi-finals by overcoming an early 8-0 deficit, winning 13 straight rounds with the help of sakurai’s aggressive Reyna play.
In the grand finals, Lag Gaming served as a worthy adversary to Absolute JUPITER. Although they lost the first map, Lag Gaming scored significantly more round wins than any of JUPITER’s former adversaries combined. JUPITER narrowly won on Ascent with a 13-8 score.
On the second map, however, Absolute JUPITER returned back to their dominant form. As Sage, takej delivered a dominant 19/11/1 performance to give JUPITER an unassailable lead. With a clever incendiary triple kill (from the grave) by barce to end the series, JUPITER toppled Lag Gaming with a 13-6 score to win the RAGE invitational. Takej received MVP awards for his strong performances on Reyna and Sage in the grand finals.
The 16-team, single-elimination bracket also featured well-known Japanese esports organizations such as Detonation Gaming and SCARZ. The livestream on Twitch also hit over 30,000 peak viewers during the grand finals, showing great promise for the region’s competitive VALORANT scene. Team Absolute JUPITER won ¥500,000 in prize money for the tournament win.
JUPITER’s players previously competed in Counter Strike: Global Offensive under Absolute in 2018. Absolute was considered one of the best CS:GO teams in Japan, representing the region in the World Electronic Sports Games (WESG) for two consecutive years. All five members left their tenured careers in April of this year to transition to professional VALORANT.
The RAGE Invitational is a part of VALORANT‘s 2020 Ignition tournament series. The competitive action extends through Sunday night as the G2 Esports Invitational’s playoff rounds begin.
