Acend defeats Gambit, crowned VALORANT World Champions 2021
Acend has won the first Riot Games’ Valorant Champions by defeating Gambit Esports in the grand finals championship. Both teams are from the EMEA region with Acend being based in Europe in general while Gambit from Russia. The grand final took place at Verti Music Hall in Berlin and witnessed Acend winning 3-2 over Gambit in a best-of-five format.
Gambit took the lead in the first match, defeating Acend 13-11 on the Breeze map. Acend retaliated in the second match by defeating Gambit 13-7 on Ascent. Moving on to the third map, Fracture, Gambit, again, defeated Acend 13-3. Acend and Gambit then entered a stalemate in the next match, prompting overtime. Acend, however, came out victorious with 14-12. Finally, on Split, Acend landed the final blow by beating Gambit 13-8.
Acend entered the final stage of the VALORANT Champions 2021 after a year-long series of tournaments and qualifiers which culminated into 16 teams representing a range of global regions. Acend defeated Team Secret 2-0, with 13-8 on Icebox and 13-6 on Breeze, in the quarterfinals. It then beat Team Liquid 2-0 in the Semifinals with 13-6 on Bind and 13-5 on Split.
Gambit, on the other hand, faced X10 Crit in the quarterfinals and defeated it 2-1. Gambit won 13-7 on the first map, Fracture, but was defeated 13-7 on the second map, Ascent. Gambit managed to advance to the semifinals by winning the last map, Breeze, 13-7. Gambit then faced KRU Esports and, again, won 2-1. Gambit won on the first map, Breeze, 13-8, lost on the second map, Ascent, 13-7, and won on the third map, Bind, 18-16.
Acend took home $350,000 while Gambit was given $150,000. KRÜ Esports from Latin America and Team Liquid from Europe who lost in the semifinals received $90,000 each. Viewership tracking service Esports Charts reported that event viewership peaked at 1,089,068 during the grand final.
VALORANT teases Agent 19
The victory of Acend was not the only news that came from the championship’s finals as Riot Games also teased the coming of VALORANT’s next agent, Agent 19, during the opening ceremony. In the teaser video, coded strings of numbers and letters form a silhouette of a woman who then speaks in Tagalog and English about her powers.
Riot Games had previously teased the origin of the agent numerous times. In the most recent Night Market released in the client, for example, star-shaped lanterns resembling parols, traditional Filipino lanterns displayed during the holidays, can be seen.
According to rumors, it is likely that Agent 19 is also a radiant, not unlike Astra, VALORANT’s latest radiant, released back in early 2021. It appears that the next agent’s power is linked to electricity since bolts of lightning always appear near her vicinity in addition to the fact that she also refers to “lightning” in the teaser. More specifically, she says, “hope they like getting hit by lightning” in addition to telling viewers to “get ready” because she “goes fast”.
With the coming of Patch 4.0 next month, it is likely that we will not see the agent until around the same time.
