Whether in ranked play or on stage, pistol rounds in VALORANT are crucial to winning, and one team from VCT Masters Tokyo is going on a deep run thanks to a tournament-leading pistol win rate—and that’s despite playing a lot of them too.
Evil Geniuses are the VALORANT team in question; a team making their international debut no less. They have rolled over some of the best across the world thanks to their pistols proficiency, out-strategizing or out-fragging their opponents. After winning their first pistol on both maps against Team Liquid on June 19, they used those wins to sweep them 2-0 and continue their upper bracket run.
The fact they managed to win 50 percent of pistols against Liquid is good, but nowhere near their standard so far in Tokyo.
Since group stage started, EG has played four series. They have 13 wins in 16 pistol rounds, giving them an 81 percent win rate. Not only is it so high, but the team also has one of the largest sample sizes left for playoff teams.
Not only does the EG roster win pistols a lot, but they also convert their bonus round. The first-round teams usually have to use worse guns in comparison to their enemies. Out of the 13 times when EG won the first two rounds, they have won the third a further nine times, giving them a very nice 69 percent win rate.
When your team not only wins pistols but also wins bonuses, that leads to dominant halves of VALORANT, like their Fracture against Team Liquid. They ended that particular map half up 11-1, making the second half nothing but a formality in the 13-2 win. That was the most one-sided map of the Tokyo tournament so far, and it was in the upper bracket semifinals. Usually, a team hanging by a thread in the lowers gets rolled like this, not the number one seed from EMEA.
Related: Jawgemo proves patience doesn’t pay off in dominant EG win
The only two teams to have defeated EG on pistol rounds so far are Liquid (twice), and LOUD (once). That’s it. And, even more incredibly, it took an unbelievable 4K from Corbin “C0M” Lee to get TL over the line in one of those two victories.
Other VALORANT teams in Tokyo better start fearing EG when they have those Classics, Ghosts, Frenzies and Sheriffs in hand because it’s very quickly become a key reason why they’re stomping the competition.
EG will be back in action on June 20 in Tokyo’s upper bracket final on June 19. TL face NRG with their VCT Masters lives on the line earlier that same day.
