Riot has held a live press conference in Iceland featuring Matias "saadhak" Delipetro, Jake "Boaster" Howlett, Anthony "vanity" Malaspina, Shahzeb "ShahZaM" Khan, and Adil "ScreaM" Benrlitom.

Questions and answers are transcribed below:

@ScreaM — Steven Cropley, Juked.gg

Europe has been one of, if not the most, up-in-the-air regions — lots of teams winning or competing for those top spots. Do you think it's just teams figuring out their playstyle, or something else that's caused such varied results?

It's still a new game, things have to develop, the tactics are very new. The meta is still going to evolve a lot. In my opinion, no one is really good right now, to [be able to] dominate the whole scene. so, anyone can win this tournament, and anyone could have qualified as well.

@Vanity — Ryan Horton, RyanCentral

From scrimming and interacting with other regions, how would you describe the other region's playstyles?

All the regions play relatively similarly. We haven't scrimmed the Brazilian teams much, but the European teams and north American teams play the same exact style — just default heavy — but the Europeans do it a little bit slower. I'd say the Americans are probably taking map control 15 seconds faster. But I wouldn't say the utility difference between in American Valorant and European Valorant is very much. I think the notion that the Europeans' utility is way better is just not true.

@Boaster — Ryan Horton, RyanCentral

There was an obvious point where Fnatic found amazing form to qualify with the addition of Derke and Magnum. Since then, you've not lost a Bo3. What would you say to those that think this great run you're on is just a honeymoon period after Derke and Magnum came in?

I don't think it's a honeymoon period. I think we had the basics down and the fundamentals down. Bringing in Derke and Magnum was the firepower we needed and with the leadership, coach Mini, and all the staff we have, there's a reason why we're here, and it's because we're pretty good at the game. We're looking forward to playing all the teams here and sharing what we got.

@saadhak — Yinsu Collins, Upcomer

A lot of teams and players have been surprised at how strong you guys are since arriving in Iceland and scrimming against you. Are there any teams or players that surprised you and feel will be your biggest threat in the tournament?

I think every team has its strength. We try to play our game; every player and every team is really strong, even stronger than they appear in video. We were kind of surprised about the slow play they have here; we are used to a more aggressive playstyle — rounds ending in 10 seconds, 15 seconds, and now [here] 30 seconds.

@Vanity — Jessica Scharnagle, Nerd Street Gamers

How do you think playing on LAN will affect player performance in the tournament?

Even if a lot of these players have played on LAN before, I think just given the stage it's on, the first international event for Valorant, there's going to be nerves across the board. It doesn't matter who you are or how high of a level you competed on — yeah the people would competed on a higher level will probably have an advantage later on in the tournament — but I think in the beginning everyone will have nerves. But I don't think it'll affect the level of play very much.

@saadhak — Josh Wilkinson, Plat Chat

Which teams do you match up the best against?

We haven't played against every team here because they don't want to scrim us — most of them — so it's a tough question to answer.

@Boaster — Josh Wilkinson, Plat Chat

Your players are fairly inexperienced in huge events like this. How are you making sure your guys perform their best at LAN?

I have no worries about how the players are going to perform at LAN. We've come this far and it's just a matter of enjoying the whole moment. It doesn't matter, win or lose. We're at Riot's first-ever international event. We're to enjoy it; we're here to have fun. Whatever happens, happens. But we've been practicing quite hard. Hopefully we're consistent; we're gonna go on that stage and give the best that we can.

@ShahZaM — Yinsu Collins, Upcomer

NA hasn't seen much success in esports on the international stage as of late. A lot of fans and analysts are seeing you guys as one of their biggest hopes and they're expecting you to win Masters 2. Do you feel that pressure, and do you think that you guys could be the poster boys for NA's success this time around?

We definitely feel the pressure. If there's any team to represent NA, it's probably us — we've been the most consistent over the last year. But that's been the story going into a lot of these tournaments for us, that we were the favorites to win the tournament and we still produced results. I feel really comfortable with the level we're at, with the stuff we've prepared. Honestly, we're definitely in a position to win. It's about us showing up on match day.

@Vanity — Jessica Scharnagle, Nerd Street Gamers

What were some of the biggest changes you made in preparing for this competition compared to your regional tournaments?

We have a stand-in, so obviously our preparation is going to be a little different. You have to try to get the player acclimated. That's probably the biggest hurdle we'll to have to overcome throughout the tournament. I think we've done a good job at it so far, but we'll never actually know until we get on the stage and play the matches, but during practice everything's been going well and I think we'll be OK. Our prep hasn't changed much; I'll watch some VODs here and there, but I don't think these VODs of these teams from two months ago is going to have very much impact on how teams are going to play going into this tournament, because most of the teams are going to have a lot of things change about their game style.

@Boaster — Josh Wilkinson, Plat Chat

What lessons did you take away from the loss in the Challengers finals to Liquid? After losing on Icebox and Split, compared to the previous time, has work been done on your map pool?

People comment on our map pool quite a lot and say it's not that strong. I'd say yeah, we've had a little bit of inconsistency here and there, yeah shouldn't have lost to Liquid on Icebox, but they read us quite well, and they did really well, going in with the entries and kind of big d-ing it. We've brushed up; we've had three weeks. I'd say we've pretty much brushed up on everything now and we're looking forward to playing Liquid again if we have the opportunity, if they don't meet Vikings first (cya!).

@ScreaM — Josh Wilkinson, Plat Chat

What do you see as Liquid's biggest competition on your side of the bracket?

I don't even know who we play. We're just going to destroy everybody.

@Vanity — Josh Wilkinson, Plat Chat

How does jammyz differ from wippie?

wippie is a more aggressive lurker than what we have in jammyz. I think jammyz is more of a passive type player which hinders us a little bit because we were not reliant, but wippie created a lot of space and gave us a lot of information on the weaker sides of the map. But I do think jammyz is really strong on defense and that's something that will benefit us throughout this. They're both really strong on defense but jammyz is a lot better at holding sites on the agent he's currently playing.

@ShahZaM — Jinyu Yang, Valorant Spike China

What are the differences in playstyle and communication when you play on the EU server?

EU playstyle is definitely really slow. NA teams default like that, but EU teams are even slower, so sometimes we just need to have patience with our team to not feed into them waiting for us.

@ScreaM — Laurence Phillips, Esports.gg

Following Stage 2: Challengers 1, Team Liquid has been exponentially improving. What changes were made to allow for this quick turnaround and produce results straight away?

When we got Jamppi, we went into the first qualifier instantly without any practice so we had to find ourselves. After that qualifier, everything went smoothly. Jamppi is one of the best awpers, if not the best, so it helps us a lot. We're feeling comfortable with him.

@ShahZaM — Laurence Phillips, Esports.gg

FaZe ZachaREEE mentioned after your grand finals in Stage 1 Masters that Sentinels' intel gathering is better than any other team's. How much will it help you in Masters Reyjavik? What you attribute this trait in your team to?

That's one of our biggest strengths — being able to play around people's communications and relaying information to me about how the other team is playing. How we put together a plan to approach around is the core of us adapting. I feel like we're really good at playing for intel while not giving up and kills as well as info starving the other team if we need to and then making a play off of that.