After two straight one-sided victories against Sentinels and Luminosity Gaming in the upper bracket of the NA VCT Challengers One main event, The Guard find themselves just one win away from attending an international VALORANT LAN at Masters Reykjavík.
Even with an upset victory over Version1 under their belts from the day prior, Luminosity were considered the underdog against The Guard. Luminosity held their own in a tightly contested 6-6 first half of Bind before The Guard did enough on defense via some impressive retakes to take away Luminosity’s Bind pick by a 13-10 scoreline. JonahP, net, and Sayaplayer each produced over 21 kills for their side.
On Icebox, some heroic playmaking from Luminosity’s dazzLe and bdog ended up not being enough to slow down another stellar Jett game from Sayaplayer. He had 17 kills after only 10 rounds, and ended up with 23 kills total in a 13-5 win, punctuated by an astonishing one-vs-three from trent to put The Guard on match point.
The Guard’s win against Luminosity today comes on the heels of their monumental upset over Sentinels from the day before. Despite The Guard’s stellar play throughout the group stage alongside Sentinels’ slow start, very few expected NA’s new hot team to defeat the dominant roster from last year so decisively, capped off with a 13-1 rout on Icebox.
This moves The Guard within one series win away from reaching Masters Reykjavík. They can accomplish this against a new opponent in OpTic, who stunned the undefeated Cloud9 earlier in the day. The two teams will meet in the upper bracket final on Friday, March 25, at 3pm CT, with the winner securing a playoffs grand final spot and a trip to Iceland.
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