Valorant Champions is set, save for one spot. North America's Last Chance Qualifier was postponed because of logistical issues created by the COVID-19 pandemic and is set to resume on October 27.
But the other three regions — South America, EMEA, and APAC — finished their own LCQs.
FURIA
FURIA
Brazil
Rank #6
heat
Olavo Marcelo
raafa
Rafael Lima
mwzera
Leonardo Serrati
havoc
Ilan Eloy
Khalil
Khalil Schmidt
,
Team Liquid
Team Liquid
Europe
Rank #12
paTiTek
Patryk Fabrowski
kamyk
Maks Rychlewski
nAts
Ayaz Akhmetshin
Keiko
Georgio Sanassy
kamo
Kamil Frąckowiak
, and
FULL SENSE
FULL SENSE
Asia-Pacific
Rank #1
Leviathan
Thanyathon Nakmee
Laz
Kittikawin Jirawatkakan
Killua
Tanate Teerasawad
seph1roth
Chinnakrit Phoojaroen
Potter
Sutthichai Promsrikaew
triumphed after a week of competition to punch their own tickets to Valorant's first year-end crowning competition.
The competitions were full of unexpected results, and the statistics tell the story of how those results came to be. Each region differed from the others as the teams showcased their unique playstyles and strategies. Here are a few of the stand-out statistics from the first three LCQ events.
EMEA's rejected agents
Brimstone has all but disappeared in just about every region following buffs to Viper and the release of Astra, and that's after he already played second fiddle to Omen as the game's premier smokes character. But the one region he has continued to maintain a foothold in is EMEA.
At least that was the case until now.
Brimstone's pick rate increased from 12% to 18% between S2C2 and S2 Playoffs, but has dropped since then.
Brimstone's usage dropped to a 0% pick rate in the EMEA LCQ, a stark difference from his peak pick rate at 18% in the Stage 2 EMEA playoffs and even from the 9% pick rate in EMEA's last competition — the Stage 3 playoffs.
Previously, EMEA found some use for Brimstone on specific maps, namely Bind. But his disappearance in the region marks the total demise for the agent with a 0% pick rate across all of the LCQs.
KAY/O was picked 10% less often in EMEA than in the other two regions.
But Brimstone wasn't the only agent EMEA largely ignored. The region became the only one of the three to make almost no use of the game's newest agent, KAY/O. Both South America and APAC saw a rise in KAY/O pick rate in their LCQs to about 11%, but in EMEA the agent was picked only 1% of the time. In fact, only one EMEA team made use of him at all —
Anubis Gaming
Anubis Gaming
Inactive
, the lone MENA representative in the tournament. Mohamed "Shalaby"
Shalaby was the only player in the whole tournament to pick KAY/O.
The APAC Split
The APAC LCQ proved to be a roller coaster with some of the most unexpected results across any of the three LCQ tournaments played out in full. While the Korean teams and
Paper Rex
Paper Rex
Asia-Pacific
Rank #5
mindfreak
Aaron Leonhart
Jinggg
Wang Jing Jie
f0rsakeN
Jason Susanto
d4v41
Khalish Rusyaidee
something
Ilya Petrov
stood out as popular pre-tournament favorites, instead the grand final was between the Japanese
NORTHEPTION
NORTHEPTION
Japan
Rank #15
side and the Thai FULL SENSE squad.
A large part of FULL SENSE's success came off their use of the agent EMEA largely ignored — KAY/O. Kititkawin "PTC" Rattanasukol, their KAY/O player, not only finished the event with the highest ACS but also at times redefined how to use the agent with his outstanding performance.
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1. 🇹🇭 PTC : 276🥇
2. 🇰🇷 @SeoldamTwit : 273 🥈
3. 🇹🇭 JohnOlsen : 254 🥉
4.🇮🇩 @jasonsusantoo : 240
5. 🇰🇷 @DK_T3xture : 237
Data from: @runitback_gg
But EMEA wasn't the only region to reject the worldwide convention. APAC rejected a popular pick of its own — a map instead of an agent. While both South America and EMEA picked Split more often than any other map at eight plays a piece, Split was among the least popular maps in APAC at just four plays.
Every map but Breeze favored defenders in APAC.
APAC didn't prove to be an outlier region on Split just in pick rate alone, the region also proved unusual in its win rates on the map. While the other two regions found near identical results for attackers and defenders on Split at about a 50% win rate for each side, APAC's Split games proved to favor the defenders significantly. Defenders won 60% of their rounds in APAC Split matches, making it the most defender-sided map of any in the region.
FURIA no carry?
The South American LCQ was the first Valorant LAN event between Brazilian and LATAM teams, despite sharing a continent. Brazil came out on top this time as FURIA bested
Australs
Australs
Latin America South
Rank #7
Sekiro
21
TAFG
nx1
Kramz
mrtn
in the grand finals in a convincing 3-0 fashion.
Gabriel "gaabxx"
Carli from
Sharks Esports
Sharks Esports
Inactive
gaabxx
Gabriel Carli
prozin
Wallacy Sales
KILLDREAM
João Ferreira
Addicted
Eduardo Torres
dominated the stats of the event, leading in almost all metrics including ACS, K:D, and ADR. In most tournaments, a player from the event's champions wouldn't be too far behind — but in this case the top FURIA player doesn't even crack the top five in ACS.
While four of the region's 10 highest ACS players played in the grand finals, none of them flirted with the highest ACS overall.
FURIA's highest-rated player was Alexandre "xand"
Zizi, in seventh a full 40 ACS behind gaabxx. His teammate, Agustin "nzr"
Ibarra, finished just 15 ACS behind him to round out the top 10 — but they weren't even the two highest-rated teammates in the tournament.
Gamelanders Blue
Gamelanders Blue
Inactive
's Walney "Jonn"
Reis and Leonardo "mwzera"
Serrati finished the tournament third and eighth in ACS respectively, and Australs' Francisco "kiNgg"
Aravena and Marco "Melser"
Eliot Machuca Amaro finished fifth and ninth respectively.
Perhaps it shows a lack of explosive firepower from the FURIA side, or maybe it's just evidence that everyone on the roster contributes to fragging as a unit which means no individual player can shine alone.