Guild Esports vs SuperMassive Blaze: An easy walk for Guild

Friday, February 25, sees the first match in Week 3 of VCT Stage 1: EMEA Challengers. It will be a clash between Guild Esports and SuperMassive Blaze.

VCT Stage 1: EMEA Challengers is the first major regional tournament on the Valorant Champions Tour. The top 12 teams from three regions will battle it out for three slots in the inaugural Masters' tournament and a combined prize pool of €200,000. This tournament takes place from February 11 until March 28. The group stage will run from February 11 until March 14.

Roster:

Sayf - Saif Jibraeel

koldamenta - Jose Luis Aranguren

trexx - Nikita Cherednichenko

Russ - Russel Mendes

Leo - Leo Jannesson

The Guild Esports journey throughout the Valorant Champions Tour has been all too close to the big tournaments, but they have always been stopped in their final moments. The toughest defeat was in the EMEA Last Chance Qualifier final, where the Swedish squad lost their last chance at the Valorant Champions. Had the organization bosses decided to keep the squad, they would have got a direct ticket to the indoor qualifiers. Still, they took a risk and made 3 substitutions, taking koldamenta, trexx and Russ in their line-up.

koldamenta spent all of 2021 in two major organizations, Acend and G2 Esports. His arrival in Guild Esports brings a very strong player with experience in Tier-1 tournaments who will help the team at the start of qualifications not to get lost in matches.

trexx is an up-and-coming CIS player who has lent his hand to teams such as Singularity, HONK, OG and CrowCroud. Looking at his progress in this line-up, it's obvious that he's fired up to win and is doing his best.

Russ is a former TENSTAR player who has shown excellent form since making the switch.

This squad has not lost a single map after the first six games of open qualification. The maximum the opponents have been able to take is eight rounds. On their way to closed qualifications, Guild Esports sent home teams such as CGN Esports and Anonymo Esports. In the course of the already closed qualifications, the squad was only able to give up one map, qualifying at the top of the grid for the EMEA stage from the first time. However, in the EMEA Challengers stage itself, this squad is going great. In the opening match against BBL Esports, the defeat and a tough victory against the reigning world champions Acend. The Turkish organization has already shown that they are not ready for Europe, and then there Guild in unbelievable form. It will already be a miracle if SuperMassive Blaze can take more than nine rounds.

Current VLR ranking: #6 EU

Best map in terms of win rate: Breeze - 100% for 5 maps

Worst map in terms of win rate: Split - 50% for 2 maps

Roster:

XiSTOU - Göktuğ Canciğer

Burak Yıldırım - glovee

CyderX - Caner Demir

Izzy - Baran Yılmaz

Brave - Eren Kasırga

Last season's Valorant Champions Tour saw some very interesting results from SuperMassive Blaze. The organization that appeared just before the second leg of the tournament crushed first the Turkish qualification and then the EMEA qualification and went on to win the Masters Berlin. At the Masters itself, the results were much worse, but the real test was just ahead. They also had to play EMEA Last Chance, but the Turks crushed it. After that, there was one more tournament, after which the organization began to make radical changes in the line-up.

SuperMassive Blaze defeated the Turkish qualifiers again with the new line-up, making it to the EMEA stage. Still, in the first match, the reigning world champions first gave a superb cummerbund on the opponent's peak and then stomped on their own choice. SuperMassive Blaze has one very good trump up their sleeve - their play on the Ascent map is still one of the strongest in EMEA. The match against G2 Esports was a close but completely easy game for the European team. Against Guild Esports, I do not see any chance of winning for the Turks.

Current VLR rating: #22 EU

Best maps in terms of win rate: Icebox and Breeze - 100% for 2 maps

Worst map in terms of win rate: Bind - 40% for 5 maps

I do not believe in the Turkish organization, so I'll take a handicap 1 (-1.5) for 2.25.

On the first map, I will take a handicap 1 (-3.5) for 1.63.

On the second map, I'll take Total Under 20.5 rounds for 2.04.