Despite changing teams and playing with new teammates following the disbandment of the Cloud9 White dynasty, the duo of Melanie “meL” Capone and Alexis “alexis” Guarrasi on Version1 still retain their status as the Game Changers NA trophy collectors after a dominant run through the first series tournament of 2023.
V1 crushed their competition in the double-elimination bracket, running through the open bracket without dropping a single map, capping off the run with back-to-back sweeps against Shopify Rebellion. For meL and alexis, this is their seventh straight Game Changers NA series victory (and their eighth overall LAN victory), and perhaps their most rewarding after getting sweet revenge over the Shopify Rebellion team that knocked them out of the first international Game Changers Championship.
But while the two are dominating the present in Game Changers NA, VALORANT fans were also given the opportunity to take a glimpse of an undeniable star of the future in 16-year-old Ava “florescent” Eugene. Florescent, who formerly played under Misfits Black, was the star of the main event, putting up unbelievable numbers across the four series.
Across nine maps, florescent dominated almost every major category, finishing first among all players in ACS (334.7), K/D (1.93), damage per round (216.2), kills per round (1.21) first kills per round (0.29), and total multikill rounds (58). The gap between florescent and the players directly behind her was not even remotely close in many of these categories.
Florescent added style to her substance as well. In a tournament filled with incredible highlights, florescent had one of the most jaw-dropping, winning a 1v2 during the series against Complexity with an audacious backwards mid-air dash leading to a Blade Storm right-click. Even L4CE, the Complexity player on Sova that florescent right-clicked, couldn’t help but type “wow” after that one.
V1 are already on track to the 2023 international Game Changers Championship via two North American slots, and at only 16, florescent’s journey towards multiple LAN appearances in VALORANT is only getting started.
