Gambit move past X10 to reach Champions semifinals

The pride of Southeast Asia against the Masters 3 champions. X10 Esports X10 Esports Inactive Vera Rodman Yap Tempz Pierre Heng RedKoh Danial Hakim wayne Wayne Chang Egoist Javier Chua and Gambit Esports Gambit Esports Inactive Redgar Igor Vlasov Chronicle Timofey Khromov d3ffo Nikita Sudakov sheydos Bogdan Naumov nAts Ayaz Akhmetshin opened up today's quarterfinals in a three-map bout.

X10 CRIT pocket picked Fracture. It was the team's first official game on the map. Gambit had already played the map twice during the Red Bull Home Ground #2, winning it once. Both teams were entering new terrain.

"[Fracture] was a map we practiced really hard on. That's why we wanted to pick the map," Crws said. "We were just hoping we could do better than we did in the scrims."

"We were ready for Fracture. We were ready for three maps: Icebox, Breeze, and Fracture," nAts said. "We're feeling really comfortable with these agents."

Gambit won the first two rounds of the map. Chronicle was left alone to clutch with a Sheriff on the first buy round. He was nearly able to take X10 CRIT's three players down, but Sushiboys fended him off to find his squad their first round. X10 were able to convert two more rounds, but that was all they'd do for the first half, as Gambit pressed on to a 9-3 result.

"We scrimmed them [on Fracture] and it was a really tight scoreline," crws said. "We used everything that we were going to do in the real game. We didn't get to play Fracture against Envy or Keyd Stars. We wanted to play it once because we scrimmed it really hard."

The scoreboard highlighted Gambit's early dominance of Fracture, as Patiphan was the only positive player for his team at the end of the first 12 rounds. While he was 15/8, the rest of his team had all died more than they had killed.

Gambit won the second half pistol round, reaching double digits and forcing a response from their opponents. In the face of defeat, X10 CRIT force bought on the second round and managed to find two rounds. Gambit replied with their 11th point, making the scoreline 11-5, and called in a timeout that ended up not doing much for them, as X10 CRIT kept winning rounds.

Crws took three down by himself on the A site to find the seventh round. sScary nearly repeated his teammate's feat the following round, but Redgar fended him off to give Gambit the map point. X10 immediately called for a timeout. Once the game was back underway, d3ffo and Sheydos annihilated X10 and finished the map off 13-7.

"It was unlucky that we scrimmed them before [on Fracture] before we played them. They knew exactly what we were going to do," crws said. "It's kind of hard because they kind of know how we play so they counter-stratted us and it became really hard to win them."

"It didn't come out as planned because they just played the opposite of what we were going to do," he said.

Gambit picked Ascent as their next map. They hadn't appeared on it since their Masters Berlin group stage, where they took Crazy Raccoon and 100 Thieves down. Prior to that, Gambit had lost the map to SuperMassive Blaze 13-1. X10 CRIT however, hadn't won the map the last three times they played it — one of those in Berlin.

This time around it wasn't Gambit winning the first two rounds. X10 found the early advantage. With Gambit's buy round coming in, they found their first two rounds, the second off of a 1v3 post-plant clutch from nAts. It didn't matter much, as X10 seemed to completely break Gambit's defense down on several accounts. They chained together four rounds and were barely affected by a Gambit timeout, with sScary's 3K giving the team a 7-5 lead at halftime.

Despite winning the half, X10 still had to suffer for it. Only two of their players ended the half with a positive score. Gambit, while they lost the half, had three players with a positive score.

Gambit just held onto the second half's pistol round, but X10 quickly replied with a force buy win. That daring play was the turning point for the map, as it allowed X10 to plow through the Masters 3 champions, losing only one more round on the path to a 13-7 series tie.

Each team scored 9 multikills in the first half alone. Out of the total 31 multikills registered on Ascent, X10 put in 16 of those. Although they won the map, it was a very hard-fought one.

The match went to Breeze. Gambit have only lost the map twice. X10 have a more shaky record, winning it only three out of seven times played.

Gambit had a good start to the map. Of the three first rounds they won, two were flawless. Gambit got a little more confident but X10 bit back immediately, tying up the half at 4-4. A switch flipped on Gambit's side in the later stages of the half, delivering three extremely dominant rounds that put them just ahead as the half ended, 7-5.

"We just played our game. We were fully confident and we did what we did. Full focus," nAts and Chronicle said.

After switching sides, X10 won the pistol round. Patiphan took three down the following round and, as they closed in on Gambit's eight round wins, the energy was felt in the studio. foxz nearly kept that streak going with a 3K on A, but Chronicle and d3ffo held onto a 2v4 situation to finally get on the board in the second half.

"I wasn't cautious. I went in too early compared to my teammates and it kind of disrupted the flow," crws said regarding the crucial 2v4 loss. "That caused us, as a team, to think too much about what we were going to do. It pressured us to do something we hoped would go well.

Winning that 2v4 turned things around for the Russian squad, unleashing a six-round streak that gave Gambit the 13-7 win, with a 3K from Chronicle wrapping it up. Gambit's final rounds were often taken in the face of adversity. Among several highlights, d3ffo's 1v2 clutch on round 17 stands out.

"We were really proud that we got to quarterfinals. But when I'm standing here right now, it feels like we could have done better," crws said. "We could have gone for semis or finals even. It's kind of sad that we didn't even make it. Because, first, we won against one of the [Masters 3] finalists, and now we played the champions of the previous Masters. It was just unlucky for us."

Crws went on to say he thought the team could have won today, claiming "that's the sad part about it." X10's player said too many scrims gave Gambit too much knowledge of their game plan, which made today's game harder.

"The main reason we prepared really well for them was because they always play aggressively," Chronicle said about the knowledge scrims gave them. "Their strats are readable because you know, on the attacking side, they're holding our pushes. On the defensive side, they're pushing something. We prepared for them, we knew how to play it."

When Gambit arrived in Berlin, nAts admitted the team hadn't progressed that much since Berlin due to him catching COVID-19. Now that they are two match wins away from their first ever world championship, things are different.

"Our chances are very high," nAts said. "We have a huge chance to win against them (Fnatic or KRÜ), and someone else in the final. It all depends on our confidence but we are really confident right now."

"Every team is tough. All the teams are really great," Chronicle said shortly after. "They have really great potential to win this tournament. Whoever we meet in the semifinals, they're all good."

The final quarterfinal of Valorant Champions is up next, as Fnatic take on LATAM representatives KRÜ. Whoever wins will be facing Gambit in the second semifinal on Saturday, December 11.