LOUD LOUD Brazil Rank #2 dgzin Douglas Silva v1nny Vínicius Gonçalves pANcada Bryan Luna tuyz Arthur Andrade cauanzin Cauan Pereira have taken revenge on FNATIC FNATIC Europe Rank #3 Sayonara Ștefan Mîtcu stand-in Boaster Jake Howlett kaajak Kajetan Haremski Chronicle Timofey Khromov Alfajer Emir Ali Beder for their LOCK//IN grand finals loss with a 2-0 victory in the first match of the Valorant Champions 2023 playoffs.

It's a revenge story 166 days in the making. On March 4, FNATIC overcame a monumental 11-3 deficit to LOUD and claimed the crown at LOCK//IN. Today, nobody needed to overcome a deficit: A LOUD masterclass let them exact sweet revenge over FNATIC in their first step towards a title defense at Champions.

“A lot of media said that our team was over,” saadhak said leaning into the mic. “Liars.”

Photo by Yicun Liu/Riot Games

And they found the revenge on enemy territory: Lotus. The map has been FNATIC's home ground throughout this year, where they have a 13-2 record. Those two losses? Both to LOUD, 13-8 (at LOCK//IN) and 13-6 today.

LOUD was extremely strong from the get-go on that map, claiming a 6-0 lead. FNATIC managed to claw four rounds together, but even that was not enough. LOUD conceded just two more rounds, and eventually took the map 13-6 to hand FNATIC their worst ever loss on Lotus.

“We had already studied [their Lotus],” aspas said. “We watched a lot of material on that map previously, because we got a lot of stuff from them. We already knew how they played, and we ended up studying the map even more and coming in really prepared to play against them.”

Lotus should have been FNATIC's comfort pick, but FNATIC took almost twice as many rounds on LOUD's Ascent pick to start the series than they did on Lotus. Up until this match, FNATIC had lost twice in six games on Ascent, but only once in 14 Lotus games this year.

Ascent was a tight affair throughout, and that was partly due to Derke 's eight first bloods. LOUD got off to a 4-0 start, but FNATIC soon tied things up to tie the half 6-6. The next time LOUD won four rounds in a row put them on map point, dropping just two more rounds before getting the 13-11 win.

“Derke is an excellent player. He's always going to try and find his specialty opening kills. I don't think we would say that we focused too much on him in particular,” fRoD said. “It was more about focusing on what we want to do, how we want to approach some of the maps, certain parts of the map.“

Ascent saw an extremely high level of gameplay come out from both sides. Alfajer topped the charts with 25 kills and 313 ACS on Killjoy, second only to cauanzin in rating. The Brazilian averaged a 1.38 map rating, but his seven assists on Sova were nothing to saadhak 's 18 on KAY/O.

FNATIC's first loss of 2023 gave them a slightly worse seed for Masters Tokyo. Their second loss, though, has put them up against the wall and they will have to do what only FunPlus Phoenix FunPlus Phoenix Inactive SUYGETSU Dmitry Ilyushin Zyppan Pontus Eek ANGE1 Kyrylo Karasov Shao Andrey Kiprsky ardiis Ardis Svarenieks 's European squad has ever done: win an international tournament with a full lower bracket run.

“Our goal is to win. After this, we'll probably go back to practice and just try our best for the next games,” Derke said. “I don't think there's anything special. We're going to do our jobs and just play to win.”

A monumental task like that can weigh on a team's mental, as it means they have five elimination games ahead of them before even reaching the grand finals. But, to Boaster , keeping FNATIC sane is about “rephrasing the way you think.”

FNATIC's IGL explained that “if you really want to win, you have got to want to win less. Because if you really want to win, you'll end up doing things or playing differently to how you'd normally play. So like breathing exercises, any sort of preparation or rituals you have before a game to make every game seem the same.”

Boaster also said that he personally does not feel pressure, nor does he mind losing — he merely wants his team to play well.

“We don't scrim every day and VOD review every day to not show up on game day.”

And, overall, that is why neither Boaster or Mini are troubled by their loss over LOUD. To both, FNATIC played well overall and think the loss comes down to “little mistakes,” like throwing advantageous scenarios, not playing as a team or not aiming at 100%, among another “100 reasons,” according to Mini.

Nearly 170 days later, LOUD finally got the chance to avenge their past defeat and overturn FNATIC's run, which has only hit one small bump this year.

“We are all kind of tired,” Chronicle said. “But I don't think it really affected us in this match exactly. The reasons [behind] why we did such mistakes in this game are not related to being burned out. Honestly, it feels more like we were caring about this match too much.”

“It's a win that will definitely make us more confident. We got really confident with the win over NAVI, and with this win we're really happy and even more confident for the next few games,” aspas said.

“We wanted the revenge, for sure, but we weren't thinking about it in the game,” saadhak later added.

For LOUD, it's not just about revenge. It's also a reaffirmation of their potential as a roster after a rough period that saw them go from VCT Americas champions to going out in the playoffs of Masters winless.

“No changes happened overnight. It's been a lot of hard work, a lot of work on the mental, a lot of work on the tactical,” saadhak said. “We're still working, we're still doing our own stuff. We trust each other. All of that translates into playing well now, but it never happens overnight, it's always a lot of hard work and trust in each other.”

“We do everything as a team. From hanging out, to eating dinner, but also to studying our opponents, reviewing our own tape, practicing, coming up with different ideas,” fRod later added. “We've kind of been saying this since Tokyo. We're either going to win as a team or lose as a team. Regardless of the outcome, we're together, and that's the biggest focus.”

But their job is far from done. LOUD still have to win at least three more matches before the tournament is over. And while beating FNATIC may make it seem like their lives will only get easier, fRod is being careful with his expectations.

“Every team that qualified to Champions and made playoffs is very strong. [It's about] whichever team is playing the strongest that day,” he said. “For us, it's not about whatever team we're playing. We're more focused on our game and how we're going to think about the tactics, the pistols, the antistrats in the game.”

Their next match is against Paper Rex Paper Rex Asia-Pacific Rank #3 mindfreak Aaron Leonhart Jinggg Wang Jing Jie f0rsakeN Jason Susanto d4v41 Khalish Rusyaidee something Ilya Petrov . In other words, they will play against the team who placed third at Masters Tokyo with a substitute. Now, they have their full squad together.