After falling to Rise in the North American Last Chance Qualifier upper bracket two days, Cloud9 Blue rallied in the lower bracket with a statement victory over Gen.G, who have now been eliminated from the event.
C9 claimed a hectic pistol round on Ascent, thanks to a couple of Classic kills from leaf and vanity, holding off the Gen.G retake. C9 dealt a ton of economic damage in the bonus round and won the first full buy, letting them jump out to a 4-1 lead. They continued to build that with smart post-plant plays with no answer coming from Gen.G, as C9 took an 11-1 lead after their first half.
C9 claimed another pistol, this time with relative ease as they only lost one player. Up 12-1, the Cloud9 Blue boys broke out the Judges and executed three Gen.G players with them to secure Ascent 13-1.
Gen.G got a much-needed pistol round to start their Split attack side and narrowly won against a full C9 save before losing the bonus round. Their early start was almost instantly negated, but they won a vital gun round at 2-2 thanks to a triple from Shawn on Reyna. C9 bounced right back with Mitch (Killjoy) using his ult to clear out B, get three kills and defuse in a stellar retake. Vanity brought out the Judge again, nearly aceing Gen.G during a save round, but Evil Geniuses’ loan player Temperature had a couple of big rounds to keep the C9 Blue’s halftime lead limited to just two rounds.
The two teams traded rounds to start the second half before Gen.G started collecting gun rounds to reduce the C9 lead and tie it 10-10. But C9 wrestled back control with a Mitch 3K on a thrifty round, then put Gen.G on their heels with a flawless gun round, before Gen.G rallied with another retake. A gutsy defuse by NaturE, with Xeta hunting him down, sent the map to overtime. Temperature turned up the heat with a near-impossible one-vs-two on their first overtime attack round before C9 failed to get a safe plant. As a result, Gen.G stole away Split 14-12.
Returning to Breeze, Gen.G claimed the pistol before C9 claimed the bonus, and the two sides traded rounds and clutches. Gen.G ended the first half with three of the four last rounds on defense, tying the map at 6-6.
NaturE kicks off the second half with a quad-kill Sheriff clutch in the pistol round, letting them take a small lead before a gorgeous quad from vanity prevented Gen.G from distancing themselves from C9. Gen.G’s 8-6 lead turned into an 11-8 lead for C9, who locked in on defense. Gen.G tried to rally but came up just short, as C9 closed out the map 13-10 to finally finish the series.
Before today, C9 Blue started their LCQ run with a comfortable 2-0 win over vanity’s former squad in Version1. But after taking Rise to overtime in their opening map of Breeze, the match was postponed due to a power outage affecting supamen. The map resumed the next day and ended immediately, with Rise taking Breeze and eventually the series, capped off with a strong 13-4 showing on Haven.
Gen.G’s VCT campaign is now complete, with a third-place result at NA Masters One under their belts. Most recently, they added former CS:GO coach Elmapuddy to lead the VALORANT roster and moved original member MkaeL to the inactive roster.
In their next match, C9 Blue will either play Version1 in a rematch or face off against the XSET roster for the first time ever.
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