The Initiator: North America enters the competitive scene
By Cameron Bray
Ninja, world’s most popular Twitch streamer with 14.7 million followers, is part of first North American Valorant tournament
Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, the most popular Fortnite player and Twitch streamer in the world, with 14.7 million followers, will compete in a new video game this weekend as part of the upcoming T1 x Nerd Street Gamers Valorant Showdown.
T1 announced Monday, June 22, that Ninja will captain a team in this weekend’s Showdown, starting today at 5 p.m. EDT on Twitch. His team includes a mixture of first-person-shooter pros and Fortnite champions, including Austin “Morgausse” Etue, who outlasted hundreds of opponents and won the $225,000 Fortnite Summer Skirmish Series championship in 2019
Not only is the Showdown the first North American event in the recent Ignition Series, but it is also the biggest event for Valorant since the game released Tuesday, June 2, featuring 16 top teams from North America and a prize pool of $50,000.
Ninja, 29, was the No. 1 streamer on Twitch (owned by Amazon) before signing an exclusive contract with Mixer, Microsoft’s streaming platform, in 2019. His decision to participate in this weekend’s Showdown, broadcast by Twitch, coincides with Microsoft’s announcement Monday that it will shut down Mixer and partner with Facebook Gaming, another streaming platform.
To say Ninja is incredibly popular in the world of Fortnite, video games and online streaming is an understatement. He’s the most popular video-game personality in the world. In addition to his 14.7 million followers on Twitch, Ninja has 6 million followers on Twitter, 23.7 million subscribers on YouTube and 15 million followers on Instagram.
In 2018, before leaving Twitch for Mixer, Ninja drew almost 226 million viewing hours to the site (more than double those of any other streamer), and he broke site records by having more than 600,000 concurrent viewers at one point in the year.
With his participation in this weekend’s Showdown, Ninja will look to establish himself in the new esports title of Valorant after a successful Fornite career, and so will his teammates. He and his teammates have competed in Valorant before, but in a much smaller tournament than this upcoming Showdown.
Team Ninja took part in the $10,000 Lof x DTS Invitational Series, where it moved through a qualifier bracket Tuesday, June 16, and the quarterfinals before losing to TSM in the semifinals.
TSM, the winningest squad so far in Valorant, has also been invited to the Showdown today, opening up the possibility of a rematch with Team Ninja.
The 16-team Showdown begins tonight at 5 p.m. EDT on Twitch and continues until Sunday, June 28.
3 players to watch during this weekend’s Showdown (plus 2 honorable mentions)
Like I did with last Friday’s newsletter, I’m going to recommend three excellent Valorant players for you to watch this weekend. But unlike last week, all three of them are going to compete in the same tournament, so you’ll need to check their schedules carefully. I’ll also be watching them as they make their way through the T1 x Nerd Street Gamers Valorant Showdown — starting tonight at 5 p.m. EDT — so I’m excited to give you my recommendations.
I’m also going to give two honorable mentions for two great players who deserve your attention, but who have already seen recommendations from me in last Friday’s newsletter.
First, I’ll recommend Ninja. His participation in the Showdown is huge for Valorant, because it means that he’s branching out from Fortnite and trying to establish himself as a standout player in the game. Why else would he make such a splash at the first official Valorant tournament in North America? He’s looking to compete and to dominate the new Valorant arena that’s emerging, and I think his popularity will do wonders for the game as it tries to break into the highly competitive battleground of esports. My only question is whether Ninja can live up to the hype in Valorant as a player — not as an entertainer or a personality, which I know he’s mastered already. I’ll be curious to see how he and his team perform at the Showdown and whether we’ll see the heated rematch between Team Ninja and TSM after it beat Team Ninja 10 days ago at the semifinals of the Lof x DTS Invitational Series.
Be sure to follow Ninja on his Twitch and his Twitter so you can receive updates from him throughout the Showdown.
Second, I’ll recommend Tyson “TenZ” Ngo, a 19-year-old Canadian pro Valorant player for Cloud9. I saw a mountain of potential from TenZ throughout the beta for Valorant, and I’m hopeful he can start climbing it with a strong performance at the Showdown. During the beta, TenZ played some incredible games as Jett and Viper, racking up kills against some of the best teams in North America. As Jett, he nailed 30 kills twice against his opponents in his beta tournament win at the Elite Esports Rivalry Bowl North America, and he became the first player in North America to achieve the top rank in Valorant (now known as Radiant, then known in beta as Valorant). He and his team failed to make a big showing at the Twitch Rivals Tournament, where they were eliminated from the North American competition 20 days ago with a 1-2 record. But I’m hopeful TenZ and Cloud9 can still be a major force in this weekend’s Showdown despite the strong competition that they’ll face.
Follow TenZ on Twitter for updates and watch him play during the Showdown on his Twitch.
Third and finally, I’ll recommend the four qualifier teams — Together We Are Terrific, Prospects, Spot Up and Echo 8. I’m aware that I’m not recommending any specific, individual players — but I think it’s great that Riot Games and its partners (in this case, T1 and Nerd Street Gamers) are supporting the amateur Valorant community during the Ignition Series. I’ll be curious to see how these teams tangle with the professionals during the Showdown this weekend; I’d love to see some upsets take place, some underdogs emerge and some newcomers make their name playing Valorant.
Honorable Mention 1: Braxton “Brax” Pierce. Tyler Erzberger for ESPN wrote a nice piece Wednesday, June 17, about Brax and his path to redemption playing Valorant. Starting in 2012, as a 15-year-old, Brax (then known as “swag”) became one of the most successful players worldwide in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, only to be caught in a horrible match-fixing scandal two years later. Valve banned him and three of his teammates (Sam “DaZed” Marine, Keven “AZK” Larivière and Joshua “steel” Nissan) from all Valve-sponsored competitions indefinitely — a punishment which has lasted from 2014 to this today — leaving Brax to deal with the consequences. But Brax, now 23, has since been given a second chance by T1, playing Valorant alongside two of his former teammates — AZK and Tyler “Skadoodle” Latham, who survived the scandal and won the first-ever Counter-Strike world championship for North America, without Brax, in 2019. Playing Valorant, Brax and his teammates at T1 were heavily favored to win the North American portion of the Twitch Rivals Tournament, which they did Sunday, June 7. And they’ll be a major force in the coming Showdown this weekend, starting today.
Honorable Mention 2: Spencer “Hiko” Martin. Hiko drew the attention of many Thursday, June 4, when he announced he was leaving Counter-Strike and joining 100 Thieves as captain of its new Valorant team. And now he’s making the news again, as 100 Thieves announced Thursday, June 24, the full lineup for its team, which includes former professionals from PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds as well as Hiko: Keane “Valliate” Alonso, Zachary “Venerated” Roach, Diondre “YaBoiDre” Bond, and Alred “Pride” Choi. Hiko and his teammates at 100 Thieves are one of the newest Valorant teams to form and will be a major threat at the Showdown this weekend. So watch out for them.
Ranked play comes to Valorant after game-breaking bug forces 24-hour delay; T1’s Food is first to reach top rank of Radiant in just 18 hours after release
Valorant players in North America finally saw the return of ranked play (or Competitive Mode) in-game Wednesday, June 24, after a game-breaking glitch forced a 24-hour delay by developer Riot Games.
The bug, which was identified by Valorant game director Joe Ziegler, caused an issue in which players could occasionally spawn in the opposing team’s zone, forcing Riot Games to delay the release of competitive play at least 24 hours after the release of patch 1.02, which came out a day earlier, on Tuesday, June 23.
Once the bug was discovered, Ziegler and Riot Games staggered the release of ranked mode across regions and across time zones at off-peak hours to maintain and monitor server stability.
The release of Competitive Mode reached North America on Wednesday, June 24, at 2 p.m. PT.
Players such as Ali “Myth” Kabbani and Spencer “Hiko” Martin said that they appreciated the consistent updates from Ziegler and Riot Games throughout the update process, and that they looked forward to playing Competitive Mode during their next livestreams on Twitch.
With the release of Competitive Mode, Valorant now has eight ranks total and three tiers within each rank, making for a total of 22 possible ranked tiers altogether. Ranks in Valorant run all the way from the lowest designation, Iron 1, to the highest honor, Radiant.
In patch 1.02, Riot Games renamed the top rank to Radiant after the previous name, Valorant, caused some confusion with the game title Valorant during the two-month, pre-release beta.
With the release of ranked play in Valorant, players have rushed to claim the top rank of Radiant for themselves, and at least one has been successful.
Victor “Food” Wong, a 23-year-old pro for T1, hit Radiant in just 18 hours after release, becoming the first Valorant player to achieve the top rank.
Aided by Hiko from 100 Thieves, Food finally reached the top rank Thursday, June 25, at about 11:48 a.m. EDT after a grueling “Radiant or 24 Hour Stream,” in which he played Omen, Raze and Reyna.
In his 18th hour of livestreaming Valorant, Food bested his opponents 13-4 on Split to earn the coveted rank of Radiant, securing his place in Valorant lore forever.
Riot Games announces new Valorant Pacific Open
Riot Games announced Wednesday, June 24, that it would host the new Valorant Pacific Open with Cyber Games Arena, an esports event organizer from Hong Kong and Taiwan, in early July.
The Pacific Open will be the first event of the recent Ignition Series to be held in Southeast Asia, and it will feature 10 teams from Taiwan, Thailand, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore as they battle it out for a prize pool of $20,000.
Qualifiers will commence Friday, July 3, with the preliminary being open to public participation. Registration for the preliminary is open from Tuesday, June 23, to Wednesday, July 1, giving amateur Valorant players the opportunity to qualify and star in the tournament.
Winners from each qualifier will advance to the Valorant Pacific Open Finals later in August. Find out more at Riot Games’ website.
Cameron Bray is the lead writer for The Initiator, a recently created newsletter about Valorant produced by Numlock News. He also contributes to No Bid Nation, a new sports blog about William and Mary basketball. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @spike_cameron or send him an email at cameron@numlock.news.