Clearly Honkai: Stair Rail has hit all the right notes for modern gamers, with the space-faring title so addictive one VALORANT pro player in the Taiwan and Hong Kong Challengers League even failing to turn up for a match against S2 Esports after being too consumed by miHoYO’s new gacha release to install the VCT client in time.
Stair Rail absolutely obliterated download records at launch, and now, it’s clearly impacting other titles’ esports scenes too.
The unidentified player’s absence on May 2 forced the Ghost CommandoS squad to forfeit their VALORANT match, giving S2 Esports a far-too-easy victory.
Turn-based battler Honkai surpassed 20 million downloads within its very first 24 hours, and we might’ve found one of the players who contributed to that milestone.
While this failure will likely mark the player’s reputation, their whole VALORANT squad hasn’t been performing too well throughout the entirety of the VCL Taiwan/Hong Kong Split either. So far, Ghost CommandoS have failed to win a single best of three out of the six played, and that’s not even including this Star Rail incident.
The roster’s only emerged victorious on one out of 14 maps played throughout the tourney, with seven matches left before playoffs. Unfortunately, for Ghost CommadoS, their chances of reaching the VCL Pacific: Ascension seem to be slipping away.
CommandoS finished last out of eight rosters, earning $500 for their troubles.
Fortunately, for S2 Esports, this free Honkai-fuelled win bolstered their stats just in time to boost them toward the all-important VALORANT playoffs. The roster finished sixth, fitting them in the final spot, guaranteeing their spot in the final bracket of the tournament.
Now, they’ll have all the time in the world to play Honkai: Star Rail in peace, without that pesky professional VALORANT scene interfering.
