The last match of today’s action at the VALORANT Game Changers Championship was high stakes since the winner of the third series would advance to the grand final. The final upper bracket battle before the grand final featured EMEA’s G2 Gozen and Brazil’s Team Liquid.
G2 continued the dominant performance they have shown throughout the entire tournament today, but Team Liquid didn’t go down without a fight. G2 won the match 2-0, but that scoreline doesn’t tell the whole story.
Liquid opted to bring G2 to Ascent, which was the only map they dropped to North American favorite team Cloud9 White in their last match.
This pick paid off early for Liquid and the team netted themselves five rounds in a row. The star of Ascent for Liquid was undoubtedly bstrdd on Jett, who the team relied on to get key frags to propel their momentum forward.
Yet G2 had their own operator-wielding menace on their side. Mary, one of the youngest players in the tournament at just 16 years old, had something to say on her side of the operator duel against bstrdd. The two went head-to-head throughout the entire map and they capitalized on the long sightlines that Ascent has to offer.
The momentum continued to swing back and forth for both teams, which left the first map of the match headed toward overtime. And in overtime, G2 pulled through and won both rounds, taking the map (14-12) that had gotten the better of them earlier in the week.
The series then transitioned to G2’s map pick, Breeze. Coming into the Game Changers championship, Breeze wasn’t a map that G2 was particularly known for within the EMEA region. But suddenly, in Berlin, the team is making a name for itself near the waters of the tropical map.
Bstrdd still showed out once again on Jett and wasn’t afraid to make aggressive plays. Her movement combined with a 32 percent headshot percentage gave Liquid some hope. Yet Mary’s headshot percentage was 35 percent. Chamber is one of the strongest agents on Breeze and Mary added to the agent’s dominant statistics today.
Another notable player who stepped up for G2 today was mimi. Mimi is one of the veterans on the EMEA roster, having played CS:GO professionally in the past. She also played in NA during her time on XSET.
Though mimi was a bit absent from the beginning of Ascent, once the game settled into a rhythm on Breeze, her utility was flying and her aim was on fire. On KAY/O, mimi out-fragged her teammate Mary to go 21-17 on the map.
G2 took Breeze 13-10, no overtime needed.
With all of today’s matches being settled, the top three teams at the first international Game Changers event are from three different regions. This further confirms the diversity of VALORANT as a whole, as well as of the female and non-binary community in the esport.
G2 now await their opponents in the grand finals. They will either have a rematch against C9 or Liquid, or they will face Shopify, an opponent that haven’t played yet.
As for Liquid, their next match is tomorrow, Nov. 19, at 12pm CT against the winner of C9 vs Shopify.
