Acend put a stop to the longest match in VALORANT history by taking down Vivo Keyd 13-10 today. The map was the culmination of a convoluted series of rulings after Riot Games found Vivo Keyd played Jonathan “JhoW” Glória of exploiting a Cypher camera placement, and today’s game kicked off with a 7-0 lead for Acend.
On Dec. 3, Riot Games ruled that Jhow exploited a Cypher camera placement “that is not functioning as intended and violates the design purpose of VALORANT” during the match on Dec. 3, thus breaking Rule 7.2.6 of the VALORANT Global Competition Policy. The function was used for a total of six rounds in the match between Vivo Keyd and Acend, giving a Vivo Keyd an unfair advantage.
In the first competitive ruling, Riot stated that the six rounds where the camera exploit was used would have been granted to team Acend. Riot also granted Acend an additional round “to account for the impact of the six forfeited rounds on the subsequent rounds in the map.” The new result gave Acend the final map and the match.
Upon further consideration, though, Riot issued a second and final competitive ruling where it determined VK should only have forfeited three rounds to Acend since the team only won three out of the six rounds with the camera placement. This would make the final score 12-10 in favor of the NA team, but that score wasn’t enough to finish the game.
“After discussion with Acend, we will be replaying the match at the start of today’s broadcast with Acend ahead 7-0 (to account for the six rounds that involved the exploit and a one round Econ penalty),” Riot stated in the second competitive ruling over the issue.
The two teams resumed play on Dec. 5, with Team Acend seven rounds ahead of their opponents. But even this extensive lead did not dim the Brazilian team’s aim, with them coming back to tie the score at 9-9 against Acend.
The two teams clashed on Breeze, but the last few rounds were anything but a relaxing holiday as viewers watched the exchange of blows with bated breath. With the two teams neck to neck, the decisive game became even more intense.
Acend took a slight advantage by going first to a double-digit score, but VK didn’t give up, winning several one-vs-one moments. The desire for a comeback and revenge was not enough, however. Implementing a strategy of waiting and slowing down their opponents, Acend won the last round of the game, ending the best-of-three match with two maps in their favor.
For now, the two teams will go their separate ways, but they may meet again during this VCT Champions. We could see a rematch between the two if Acend lose to team Envy and VK win against X10 in the elimination match.
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