The longest week of matches in VCT Americas' first season has ended, and now all 10 teams have played more than half their matches for the season. Very few teams have separated themselves as above or below the pack at this point.

Three teams went 2-0 this week: LOUD LOUD Brazil Unranked pANcada Bryan Luna saadhak Matias Delipetro tuyz Arthur Andrade cauanzin Cauan Pereira , Cloud9 Cloud9 North America Unranked Xeppaa Erick Bach Rossy Daniel Abedrabbo v1c Victor Truong moose Kaleb Jayne OXY Francis Hoang , and 100 Thieves 100 Thieves North America Unranked zander Alexander Dituri Cryocells Matthew Panganiban eeiu Daniel Vucenovic Boostio Kelden Pupello Asuna Peter Mazuryk . Three teams went 0-2: KRÜ Esports KRÜ Esports Latin America South Unranked keznit Angelo Mori mta Nicolás González Shyy Fabian Usnayo , Evil Geniuses Evil Geniuses North America Unranked Derrek Derrek Ha NaturE Nicholas Garrison supamen Phat Le , and MIBR MIBR Brazil Unranked mazin Matheus Araújo artzin Arthur Araujo Palla Davi Alcides rich Gabriel Rosa liazzi Felipe Galiazzi . The region's four remaining teams split results at 1-1.

As a result, LOUD and Cloud9 stand above the rest of the region at 5-0 and 4-1 respectively. LOUD's dominance was expected after the core followed a 2022 VCT championship with a runner-up finish at LOCK//IN, but Cloud9's emergence is more of a shock to most onlookers after the team dumped superstar yay and IGL vanity and replaced them with two players scooped up from North America's Tier 2 scene.

At the other end of the league's table, an 0-5 KRÜ squad and 1-4 Evil Geniuses roster are watching any hope they may have of making the season's playoffs slipping away. Teams must make it into the top six to qualify for playoffs, meaning both teams have little if any room for mistakes the rest of the way out.

Here's how they and the rest of the league's teams got to their current place in the standings:

Day One

The week began with a match between Sentinels Sentinels North America Unranked N4RRATE Marshall Massey bang Sean Bezerra Zellsis Jordan Montemurro zekken Zachary Patrone johnqt Mohamed Amine Ouarid and LOUD LOUD Brazil Unranked pANcada Bryan Luna saadhak Matias Delipetro tuyz Arthur Andrade cauanzin Cauan Pereira , the first pitting the duo of Sacy and pANcada against their world championship teammates on LOUD. The match went 2-1 in favor of the latter.

Despite the shared history of the two rosters, the teams entered the match with little in common since the 2022 VCT champions split between two teams. LOUD started the year with a runner-up finish at LOCK//IN, while Sentinels went out in the first round. In VCT Americas, LOUD started the season near the top at 3-0, whereas Sentinels began the season near the bottom at 1-2. The only thing they might have had in common at this point were defeats to FNATIC at LOCK//IN.

The match also featured the VCT Americas debut of Marved , who was playing the first of two matches in place of TenZ this week. Marved was previously a part of an Envy and OpTic roster that finished within the top three in four of the five LANs. The controller player joined Sentinels as a substitute shortly before the start of the VCT season.

While Marved didn't come storming out of the gate to start the match, his Brazilian teammates showed their former compatriots no mercy on Pearl. Sacy put up a server-high 20 kills on the map while pANcada kept his deaths to a server-low of eight.

The whole of Sentinels kept themselves just ahead of LOUD for much of their attacking half, which ended 7-5 in Sentinels' favor. But Sentinels stepped on the gas after the side switch, going 6-1 on defense to win the map comfortably at 13-6.

Given that Pearl was LOUD's pick, it appeared for just a moment that Sentinels might be the first VCT Americas team to topple LOUD. But LOUD would not prove so easy to beat.

LOUD won Haven's opening pistol, but Sentinels won the next two rounds to put themselves ahead as the teams began trading rounds. Finally, with Sentinels leading 4-3, LOUD finally built some momentum by winning the next four rounds. That allowed them to head into halftime with a 7-5 lead.

Sentinels responded by building their own momentum early in their attacking half, quickly jumping back ahead to a 10-8 lead. LOUD tied the game, allowed Sentinels one more round, then triumphed in each of the final three rounds to win Sentinels' pick 13-11.

He treated aspas and Less like they weren't ever his teammates.

Although Sacy again proved fearsome, outperforming his 1.36 rating on Pearl with a 1.43 rating on Haven, no amount of heroics could stop aspas from dominating when his team needed him to. He finished Haven with an even better 1.54 rating thanks to his 28/13 K/D.

LOUD's star Jett player apparently wasn't satisfied with that performance alone and began Ascent with a 17/4 K/D and 2.02 rating defensive half to help put his team up 9-3. That lead was enough to allow LOUD to close out the map on their attack fairly quickly, ending it 13-8 and the series 2-1.

Although aspas and Sacy led their teams in kills across the whole of the series, the match saw quietly impressive performances from support players. Marved was the only player on both teams to finish every map with a positive K/D, while cauanzin maintained a perfect 100% KAST on Ascent.

The day's next match was far from the back and forth affair of the match prior as LEVIATÁN LEVIATÁN Latin America South Unranked Demon1 Max Mazanov tex Ian Botsch kiNgg Francisco Aravena aspas Erick Santos C0M Corbin Lee sailed to a painless 2-0 victory over MIBR MIBR Brazil Unranked mazin Matheus Araújo artzin Arthur Araujo Palla Davi Alcides rich Gabriel Rosa liazzi Felipe Galiazzi .

Leviatán set the tone early by surging to a 10-2 lead on the defense of Pearl, which they then closed out 13-4 soon after. Icebox went similarly; Leviatán again gave themselves a 10-2 lead on defense, but this time ended the map 13-3.

nzr put together an impressive 3.0 K/D ratio between the two maps. In fact, his kill difference of +22 was almost equal to MIBR's top frag of 23, which came courtesy of frz .

Day Two

Despite coming just two rounds away from their first victory of the VCT season, KRÜ Esports KRÜ Esports Latin America South Unranked keznit Angelo Mori mta Nicolás González Shyy Fabian Usnayo lost day two's opener to 100 Thieves 100 Thieves North America Unranked zander Alexander Dituri Cryocells Matthew Panganiban eeiu Daniel Vucenovic Boostio Kelden Pupello Asuna Peter Mazuryk in a heartbreaking 2-1 match.

The match began lopsided, but not in the way most fans would have expected. KRÜ's Ascent pick immediately paid them dividends in the form of a 7-0 start that ultimately proved insurmountable. A pair of 200+ ADR performances from Melser and keznit helped KRÜ secure map one 13-4.

For a time, Split appeared as if it would be a repeat. Again, KRÜ began on the defense, and again KRÜ dominated the early going. They built a 6-0 lead to start the map, and then turned that into an 8-1 lead. But then 100 Thieves finally came to life.

Nine consecutive rounds out of the Thieves put them on top 10-8. KRÜ briefly halted 100 Thieves' momentum, and even took back the lead at 11-10, but then 100 Thieves closed it on 13-11 on a pair of defuses.

While Circus Circus Inactive tretokss Stalker Samuel Azar sp4re guldhhan bexeM gave his team a strong 17/7 K/D performance in the first half, he stumbled into a 5/11 second half. Asuna 's performance for 100 Thieves was the reverse; he went 8/11 in the first half, then turned that around for a 19/9 second half.

Fracture did not give KRÜ the same hope that Split had given them the map before. Although the Latin American squad briefly took an early 3-2 lead, they found themselves playing from behind for the remainder of the match. A 100% KAST and 7/0 FK/FD out of Cryocells ' Jett gave 100 Thieves a 13-5 win to take the match 2-1.

The second match of the day went in FURIA FURIA Brazil Unranked mwzera Leonardo Serrati havoc Ilan Eloy Khalil Khalil Schmidt nzr Agustin Ibarra 's favor over Evil Geniuses Evil Geniuses North America Unranked Derrek Derrek Ha NaturE Nicholas Garrison supamen Phat Le ' 2-1, in large part thanks to a dominant performance from longtime superstar mwzera .

Evil Geniuses jumped out to a promising 5-1 start to the Ascent opener, but FURIA slowly pulled the game back over the course of the first half. EG had just a 7-5 lead by the end of their defensive half.

FURIA got off to their own strong start when they moved over to defense, eventually finding themselves up 11-9 after a dgzin ace against pistols. EG won three of the next four to force overtime, but they could not keep the momentum going, and eventually lost to FURIA 15-13.

EG rebounded nicely on their map pick of Fracture, where they ran ahead to an 8-4 lead on attack. An equally rock-solid defense allowed EG to win the map in a comfortable 13-7, tying the series.

Fracture was the lone map mwzera struggled on. He went just 11/18 on it, one kill less than each of his four teammates. On the other side, EG built success by sharing the kills — Ethan and jawgemo killed 21, and Boostio killed 22.

At first, EG looked as if they could string the momentum from Fracture into a win on Haven, where they built a 7-5 lead on their attack. But the lead wasn't quite as secure as EG would have liked. Despite trailing, FURIA had by then racked up nine more kills than their opponents.

Rounds quickly started falling FURIA's way when the two sides switched, FURIA winning five consecutive rounds before EG got back on the board. By then, it was too late, and FURIA was able to finish out the map 13-10 to win the series 2-1.

At least Demon1 gave EG the play of the match.

Day Three

The final two teams to play their first match of the week, Cloud9 Cloud9 North America Unranked Xeppaa Erick Bach Rossy Daniel Abedrabbo v1c Victor Truong moose Kaleb Jayne OXY Francis Hoang and NRG Esports NRG Esports North America Unranked FiNESSE Pujan Mehta s0m Sam Oh Verno Andrew Maust mada Adam Pampuch Ethan Ethan Arnold , kicked off the third day with a 2-1 match that went C9's way.

C9 kicked off their Haven pick by winning the opening two rounds, eventually making their way to a 3-2 lead. But the fifth round was the last C9 led on Haven, as an unrelenting NRG attack began plowing through C9.

Even a prolonged technical timeout at 7-3 that eventually forced a lobby remake couldn't half NRG's momentum. The team still closed out the half's final two rounds to head onto the defense up 9-3.

While Cloud9 hinted at a comeback by winning five of the first six rounds after the side switch, NRG put a pin in that plan soon after to win the opening map 13-8. s0m 's Astra was crucial to the squad's victory as he tallied a server-best 24/8 K/D.

C9 won their third pistol of the match to open Pearl, but just like on Haven, found themselves behind by the end of the half. Three separate clutches and a 92% KAST from four out of five players helped NRG helped build a 7-5 lead.

When C9 won their fourth pistol in four tries, they were determined not to let it go to waste like the last three. The squad turned their early success into a dominant defense in which they got eight first kills in 10 rounds, a stark difference from an attack half in which they just got four opening blows. They sealed the map at 13-9 to force a map three.

Although NRG could finally celebrate a pistol win to open Ascent, jakee denied them any chance to celebrate further. He played a lights-out Omen that helped C9 run up an 8-4 lead on their defense.

He might have looked even better on attack, during which he put an end to a three-round NRG win streak with nothing but a Sheriff against NRG's rifles. NRG never won another round, and C9 won Ascent 13-7 to win the match 2-1.

Crisp.

jakee started the day with an 8/16 Haven performance, but ended it with a 24/10 Ascent masterclass. He finished second in the match in kill total at 53 across the three maps, only trailing C9 Jett player leaf , who performed consistently across the series to earn 55 kills.

With the end of that match, all 10 teams in the region had already played once in this marathon week of matches. From here on out, it was going to be everyone's second match, which would put all teams past the halfway point of their season.

The first such match was a dominant 2-0 victory for Sentinels over MIBR, allowing the former to salvage their week with a 1-1 record.

On Pearl, Sentinels turned a 9-3 attacking half into a 13-5 victory. Sentinels again started 9-3 on Fracture, but this time allowed MIBR an additional round in a 13-6 victory.

Marved looked fully warmed-up in this match after making his season debut earlier in the week. He led both maps in rating, earning a 1.53 rating on Pearl and a 1.34 rating on Fracture. No one on MIBR was able to match his performance, although jzz was the lone player on the team to finish with a positive K/D on both maps.

Day Four

The fourth day kicked off with the tightest match of the season — a match that then ended with the best play of the season. The close results favored 100 Thieves, who beat Leviatán 2-1.

100 Thieves opened the series with a pistol victory after picking Icebox as the beginning map. A streak of three rounds between rounds three and five and another between rounds 10 and 12 helped Leviatán snag an early 7-5 lead.

The Thieves then returned the favor by winning their own pair of three-round streaks to grab an 11-10 lead. A pair of traded rounds later put them in position to take the first map in regulation. In fact, 100T got within a second of winning the opening map, but kiNgg 's clutch 1v3 defense defuse denial forced the teams into overtime.

To think this was only the second best round 24 1v3 win of the match…

Leviatán was sure to make 100T regret not killing kiNgg that round when they won three straight rounds to win 15-13 and get an early 1-0 lead over 100T.

Haven looked like it would be no less close when it started 6-6, and it delivered all the way through the end. Five consecutive 100T rounds following Leviatán's second pistol victory of the map put them up a comfortable 11-7, but Leviatán reeled the Thieves back in to cut their lead to one. This time, however, 100T did pull off the round 24 defuse to win in regulation, tying the map up 1-1.

The two teams remained within two rounds of each other for the first half of the last map, Lotus, just like they had in the first four halves of the match. This time, just like on map one, Leviatán switched sides while up 7-5.

Both sides traded pairs of rounds early in the second half until 100T became the first team to create distance for itself with three straight rounds to take a 12-10 lead. Leviatán won the 23rd round to send the teams to the final round of regulation for the third time in the day.

The match looked destined for yet another overtime when bang faced a 1v3 with just 15 seconds left to plant. But he isolated each of Leviatán's players one at a time to get three kills, finishing off his miracle play by putting away his Phantom and pumping kiNgg full of Shorty bullets.

Mike Breen's dream call.

Not only did his play allow 100 Thieves to dodge overtime, but it also won them the match 2-1.

The day's second match was almost as exciting for wildly different reasons. LOUD won 2-1, but not before losing one map 13-3 and winning another 13-0.

EG, who entered the match with one win, throttled the undefeated LOUD 13-3 on Split to open the series. The underdogs soon closed in on the 2-0 by taking a 10-9 lead late on Haven.

But LOUD instead denied EG a single round win for the rest of the match.

Four consecutive rounds won to end Haven gave LOUD a 13-10 win on the map, which they then followed with the first 13-0 victory for any team competing in the three VCT franchise leagues.

Everything fell apart after this...

After a LOUD timeout that followed Haven's 17th round, EG did not get a single first kill until round 10 of the following map, Pearl. That's 15 straight rounds in which LOUD got first blood.

In the match's final 36 rounds — the total of the final two maps — EG got the opening kill just six times. That's a first blood success rate of less than 17%, and a stark difference from map one where EG had a 13-3 first kill advantage.

Day Five

The final day of matches closed the week out with a pair of 2-0s. The first such scoreline fell the way of C9, which beat FURIA in a pair of decisive maps.

FURIA did get off to a 3-1 start to open their Ascent attack, but C9 swung the momentum back their own way and carried it for the remainder of the first half. By halftime, FURIA had only won one more round, and were staring down an imposing 8-4 Cloud9 lead.

After C9 got two more to put themselves up 10-4, FURIA began dragging themselves back into the game with four consecutive wins. Unfortunately for them, they'd get no closer than 10-8 thanks to a three-round streak from C9 to win the map 13-8.

FURIA's start to Fracture was even more promising: a 4-1 lead to begin their attack. But C9 again flipped the script by halftime, this time by evening things out at 6-6. C9 then surged ahead with five straight rounds won to begin their own attack, and FURIA never had a chance to pull themselves back within striking distance. C9 won 13-9.

The first map of NRG's victory over KRÜ could have easily fit in just as well with the day's first match as it did with the second. KRÜ kicked things off with a 4-1 lead on Haven, which NRG responded to by winning out the remainder of the half. KRÜ battled their way back to a 9-8 deficit in the second half, but NRG soon closed things out for a 13-10 victory.

Ascent proved to be the map where the day's pattern would break. This time, there was no slow start for the eventual victors. NRG bound ahead 9-1 during their defensive half, and then only allowed three more rounds the rest of the way to win 13-4.

The IGL leading by example.

ardiis had a particularly strong final map, as his +13 kill differential was higher than the total kills of any one player from KRÜ's side.

Looking Ahead

Saturday, April 29:

Sunday, April 30:

Monday, May 1: