NRG Esports NRG Esports North America Rank #3 FiNESSE Pujan Mehta s0m Sam Oh Verno Andrew Maust mada Adam Pampuch Ethan Ethan Arnold beat FURIA FURIA Brazil Rank #6 mwzera Leonardo Serrati havoc Ilan Eloy Khalil Khalil Schmidt 2-0, while Cloud9 Cloud9 North America Rank #7 Xeppaa Erick Bach Rossy Daniel Abedrabbo v1c Victor Truong moose Kaleb Jayne OXY Francis Hoang defeated MIBR MIBR Brazil Rank #19 artzin Arthur Araujo 2-1 on the first day of the Valorant Champions Tour 2024 Americas Kickoff. With these debut wins, NRG and Cloud9 now advance to face one another, with the winner of that future match qualifying to the playoff stage of the Americas Kickoff tournament. FURIA and MIBR remain alive in the tournament, and will face each other to see who keeps competing at the Kickoff.

NRG prove their superteam title early on

With the offseason over, these two matches were the first time players could see these modified rosters of well-respected teams. The new superteam version of NRG with Champions 2023 winners Ethan " Ethan " Arnold and Max " Demon1 " Mazanov debuted first, facing off against a team that also had a few changes heading into 2024: FURIA. Their big pickups included talent Ilan " havoc " Eloy, Vitor " kon4n " Hugo, and Felipe " liazzi " Galiazzi.

The new map pool led to Breeze's debut, on the first map of the VCT Americas 2024 season. The compositions were the same, but everyone's eyes peered over to the Jett mirror. Demon1 started on fire, helping NRG hit the half up 8-4.

Havoc's debut wasn't going well, ending the first half without a single kill. He managed to get two on round 14, to the cheer of the crowd, teasing him for a slow game so far. FURIA managed a bit of a comeback, but it ended 13-10 in NRG's favor.

Map two, Ascent, looked to be a great opportunity for NRG to take the series quickly after winning on their opponent's map pick. FURIA started their first half strong, with havoc immediately outplaying his previous map. However, much like in map one, NRG turned up the heat in the second half, and Ethan proved his worth as a fragging IGL in his NRG debut.

His play was key, but he was quick to praise the good timeouts from his new coach whenever his team got a little down.

“We had some really good anti-strats from Chet ,” Ethan said post-match, “and that brought up the mood a bit.”

As for his new role on the team, playing IGL for the first time in competitive play while joining a new roster, he didn't feel the pressure after the win.

“This team makes it extremely easy, and I just do my job as a player.”

Cloud9 squeak out close win off of OXY

RgLM from MIBR. (Image via Riot Games)

As for the matchup between Cloud9 and MIBR, the expectations were different. Cloud9 revamped their roster with some familiar faces, including Anthony " vanity " Malaspina and fellow Version1 teammate Maxim " wippie " Shepelev.

As for MIBR, as the commentators said before the match, their highlight of VCT 2023 was getting Evil Geniuses Evil Geniuses North America Rank #21 Derrek Derrek Ha NaturE Nicholas Garrison supamen Phat Le into Masters Tokyo, being the domino for EG's championship that year. Aside from that, they were a bottom feeder, looking to improve with some new blood and a revamped coaching staff.

To the delight of many fans, we got to see some new maps in the day, with C9 picking Bind and MIBR picking Split. With how the bans went, Lotus was the third map, meaning no map overlap with NRG and FURIA's game. Add onto that Francis " OXY " Hoang on Yoru, and Bind started off with a bang.

The first half showed off the firepower of C9, but also the new coaching from MIBR, leading to a 7-5 lead for the Brazilian team. MIBR showed a lot of awareness to the tricks that C9 could pull with Yoru, not biting too hard to the constant fakes. Matheus " RgLMeister " Rodigoli stood out as a consistent player, in both utility and fragging.

MIBR built up an 11-7 lead, but C9 fought back off of some good adaptations to MIBR's defense to clutch it up and win 13-11. In between maps, C9's new coach credited vanity for their ability to turn Bind around; a good sign heading into Split.

Sticking with the double duelist, MIBR started Split off strong, winning pistols and converting their bonus as well. A defensive map proved to be easy for MIBR to take, taking C9 until round six to get their first round win. This also had the year's first professional ace, with OXY helping C9 turn the half from 0-5 to a 6-6 tie.

The second half started well for MIBR again, winning pistols and bonus. That alone would be a big mountain to climb up, and C9 weren't able to make a comeback this time, losing Split 13-8.

Map three brought another new agent debut for 2024, as vanity picked the Gekko. The double initiator Gekko and Fade for Lotus was interesting, but for the third time in a row, C9 lost both pistols and the bonus round. Cloud9 were able to recover from another slow start to end the half only down 5-7.

Then, for the first time in their last four attempts, C9 won pistols due to a satisfying 4k from OXY. He then proceeded to get another ace, the second in VCT Americas 2024, proving this rookie performance as no fluke. It remained close, but Cloud9 rode the map to victory much like they did on Bind, winning 13-10.

OXY's debut stats in VCT Americas. (Image via Riot Games)

OXY was the star, and when asked about his feelings post-match, he was quick to point out how empty his head was as he aimed his way to two aces and a win.

“I don't think much, I don't know,” OXY said post-match. “I play my matches like I play ranked, so that's why you see those clips.”

As for what he's looking forward to, he quickly pointed out how he wanted to prove not only fans, but fellow competitors wrong.

“ Demon1 called me the worst duelist in franchising, so we'll see about that.”