On day one of the VCT Americas Kickoff event, anticipation was high to see reigning VALORANT world champion Demon1 debut with NRG. And while he certainly impressed in NRG’s 2-0 win versus FURIA, he wasn’t the duelist everyone was talking about at the end of the day.
In a long, dragged-out three-map series between Cloud9 and MIBR, international league rookie Francis “OXY” Hoang proved to be the ultimate difference-maker, delivering several clutch moments and multi-kills in C9’s 2-1 win, including two aces. After those aces, OXY did exactly what any 18-year-old kid would do in that situation: he screamed his head off.
After the match, C9’s returning in-game leader Anthony “vanity” Malaspina said on the broadcast the team is still ironing out a couple of kinks with the young player, namely when he “talks too much” after dying or has “too much fun” during a round. When asked about that post-game, vanity told Dot Esports that OXY had improved dramatically in those areas after an important conversation in Korea about League of Legends GOAT, Faker.
“The thing with Francis, he likes Faker a lot,” vanity told Dot. “So when we were in Korea we’d ask, ‘Francis, why is Faker so good?’ And we explained to him that [Faker] slowly suffocates you by winning. He has really good mechanics, but he doesn’t necessarily rely on them all the time.”
As capable as he is at making incredible flashy plays, what sets the four-time Worlds-champion Faker apart is his consistent ability to read both the enemy players and the situation around him and make the right play. His grasp of timing, his map presence, and his decisiveness—all combined with his mechanical skill.
But how does that work in VALORANT? Vanity says just look at one of the best teams in the world right now. “The way I think teams should play is like Fnatic,” he said. “They kind of slowly just choke you out. They have insane individuals that bail them out of rounds sometimes, but a lot of the time, they win rounds very cleanly because they force you into what they want.”
Cloud9 has “tried to replicate” that style of play and reach that level, but vanity admitted inexperience has led to a few more mistakes. Some of those mistakes appeared today with a few thrown rounds, but according to vanity, he told his teammates literally to “stop throwing” in comms. “Just win the easy rounds; it’s the hardest thing in VALORANT.”
We’ll see if C9 can correct the mistakes and continue to get superstar performances out of OXY when they face NRG in the group stage upper bracket match of the VCT Americas Kickoff.
