The VCT LOCK//IN tournament is starting to heat up with eight teams already sent on a long flight home—and we’re only a few days in.
Four of the VALORANT teams that survived the first days of the competition remain with NRG, Giants, Karmine Corp, and LOUD in the upper half of the Alpha quarterfinal bracket. Only two of these teams can advance, however.
Here are my predictions for today’s games.
NRG vs. Giants Gaming
Giants are considered one of the dark horses for the tournament, in my eyes.
Giants aren’t exactly up there with the likes of Natus Vincere, Fnatic, or Liquid in terms of EMEA names on paper, but they do pack one hell of a punch. It’d be a pretty impressive upset if they took down one of the best teams from North America in NRG.
Giants’ potential was on full display in their demolition of DetonatioN FocusMe in the first round. Giants conceded 11 rounds across two maps in total, with a 2-0 scoreline to advance to the next round. Former NAVI player Kirill “Cloud” Nehozhin played exceptionally well with 191 average damage per round, according to VLR.gg.
There’s something about Russian Sova players, man.
But Cloud isn’t the only heavy hitter on the team. Former G2 player nukkye was once regarded as one of the best duelists in the EMEA region. It seems he’s been switched to the initiator role, but if there’s a star fragger who had the skill to support his teammates effectively, it’s nukkye.
NRG cannot be underestimated, however. The former OpTic core stood out in their opening match against KOI. Popular streamer and smokes player s0m played to almost perfection with an 83 percent kill, assist, trade, or survive rating, according to VLR.gg.
I expect this one to be close, probably a bit more than most people anticipate.
George’s prediction: 2-1 NRG
LOUD vs. Karmine Corp
This match is a little easier to predict, in my opinion.
The transfer of former players Sacy and pANncada to Sentinels raised a few questions surrounding the Brazilian team. Bringing in some rookie players with a new coach and seeing immediate success would be an optimistic task, to say the least.
But with newcomer Cauan “cauanzin” Pereira putting up numbers against Gen.G in LOUD’s opening match, there could be a bright future for the team. Aspas and Saadhak both complimented each other with the shared duelist responsibilities, which ended in a 2-0 victory over Gen.G.
Karmine Corp, on the other hand, looked shaky in their match against FunPlus Phoenix. It’s difficult to predict the strategies that Chinese teams will employ in their matches, especially with a first pick Lotus.
Although KCorp won the first match, Haven, their own map pick, wasn’t pretty. They were defeated by a 13-8 scoreline with executes that failed to emulate the quality of other teams on the map, such as DRX or NRG.
One of the standout performers for KCorp, Ryad “SH1N” Ensaad, will have to continue his impressive numbers on the big stage against an away crowd that will support LOUD through thick and thin.
The brotherly duo of ScreaM and Nivera have to cook up a storm to drown out the noise.
