The Guard start VALORANT Challengers NA Split 2 strong
- Who is the favorite between The Guard and FaZe Clan in VALORANT Challengers?
- The Guard’s tex and JonahP lead the team to 13-5 victory over FaZe Clan on Fracture.
- The Guard’s neT shuts down FaZe Clan’s babybay on Lotus
- Who do The Guard and FaZe Clan play next in VALORANT Challengers?
The Guard has begun their VALORANT Challengers NA Split 2 redemption arc following a dominant 2-0 performance against FaZe Clan.
Expectations were all set on The Guard to win today’s matchup against FaZe Clan’s new roster and everything went about as you would expect.
🔥 @JonahP_ called game. pic.twitter.com/Gf5sZq2Xsq
— The Guard (@TheGuard) April 20, 2023
Map one on Fracture saw The Guard stick to the fundamentals which were enough to leave the first half with an 8-4 lead over FaZe Clan.
The Guard’s duelist Ian “tex” Botsch was a star in the team’s opening map on Fracture, alongside flex Jonah “JonahP” Pulice. Throughout the 18 rounds, tex boasted a 1.81 rating with 22 kills as he was the server’s top-performing player. That being said, JonahP also played a pivotal part in The Guard’s map victory on Fracture with 18 kills himself on Breach.
The Guard’s neT solidifies 2-0 over FaZe Clan
The Guard then took the same dominance seen on Fracture into Lotus, where the team soared to a 10-2 lead in the first half over FaZe Clan. While FaZe Clan was able to grab three rounds in the second half, The Guard eventually closed things out on Lotus with another 13-5 victory.
Ending on the right click to clutch and win the game! @valynfps @TheGuard | #ChallengersNA pic.twitter.com/LzPk6QY8Cc
— VALORANT Esports NA (@valesports_na) April 20, 2023
Every member, apart from FaZe Clan IGL Kevin “poised” Ngo ended the second map with a sub-1.00 rating due to The Guard’s exceptional understanding of the fundamentals of Lotus.
Specifically, The Guard’s Michael “neT” Bernet was a star on Lotus, boasting a 1.61 Rating and 21 kills on Killjoy. He was constantly able to stop FaZe Clan veteran Andrej “babybay” Francisty from making any plays on the map as he was held to a 0.31 Rating on Neon.
With this loss, FaZe Clan will now look to continue figuring out their own team’s identity with two new players in Anthony “mummAy” DiPaolo and Tanner “TiGG” Spanu. Their next match will be against MAD Lions on April 28 at 4pm.
Meanwhile, The Guard will look towards improving to 2-0 against OREsports on April 27 at 1pm PT.
Sage got his start in esports as a volunteer writer in 2016 for esports organization, Dignitas. Since then, he has continued to work on his craft as a journalist and reporter for a number of established esports publications, such as esports.gg, Unikrn, Akshon Esports, Howla, The Player’s Lobby, Nerd Street Gamers, and most recently Dot Esports. Now, as a member of Esports Illustrated’s content team, Sage’s primary duties are centered around creating groundbreaking written and video content about the esports industry that impacts the community in a meaningful way. Sage graduated from Rutgers University with a Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology and Informatics. There, he was a member of the Rutgers Esports Executive Board, both as the head of the fighting game community and a videographer/photographer for the Content team.