The Initiator: Valorant's back, and bigger and better than ever before.
By Cameron Bray
The Initiator returns!
After more than three months of waiting since the last tournament, competitive Valorant is back! And back and bigger and better than ever before, with a record number of viewers tuning in to watch First Strike: more than 300,000 according to some estimates! If confirmed, that peak marks a 140,000 increase from the FaZe Clan Invitational in early August, when we saw viewership peak at the then-record of 160,000 views for an official Valorant tournament.
Much has changed in the world of Valorant since The Initiator was last released, since Tuesday, Sept. 8, when we interviewed Cloud 9’s Daniel “vice” Kim for Issue 20. Not only has Riot Games introduced a brand-new Agent — Skye, an Australian huntress and beast master — but the developer has also added a new map — Icebox, a subzero setting with crazy ziplines, mile-long corridors, and claustrophobic corners, prone to heavy firefights between enemy Agents. With these changes, and with Sage having taken a much more diminished role in competitive play, Valorant looks like a completely different game than it did over the summer during the Ignition Series. And most significantly of all, with the addition of Icebox, Valorant finally has a fifth map! So say goodbye to those old-school, best-of-five grand finals where we saw one of four maps (the originals, Ascent, Bind, Haven or Split) have to be played a second time in the pivotal fifth round.
With Valorant esports’ return, The Initiator returns for our second-to-last edition of 2020 to cover this very special, highly competitive regional tournament — First Strike North America. Our final edition will be released later in the month to preview what next year will look like for fans of Valorant, and our coverage will kick into high gear once the Valorant Champions Tour begins worldwide in January 2021, so stay tuned and subscribe to our newsletter. Thanks for reading!
3 Highlights and 3 Surprises from First Strike North America
With this weekend’s latest competition — First Strike — now in the books, we saw eight incredible teams from North America enter the tournament after almost three months of training with just one goal in mind: to win it all and be crowned North America’s first Valorant champion. And of these teams, one team took home the win, silencing its critics, shocking its opponents and triumphing just two months after its formation: 100 Thieves.
North America’s first Valorant champions, 100 Thieves upset, upstaged and outplayed three top teams in the region (T1, Sentinels and TSM) to win it all — $40,000 in prize money, a ring on its finger and a crown on its head. Led by team captain Spencer “Hiko” Martin, 100 Thieves overpowered TSM — the two-time Ignition Series champions — 3-1 in the First Strike grand final Sunday, Dec. 6, to secure the championship.
Following my coverage of this summer’s T1 x Nerd Street Gamers Showdown (won by TSM), PAX Arena Invitational (won by Sentinels), FaZe Clan Invitational (TSM again) and Pop Flash (Sentinels again), I’m going alternate between three highlights and three surprises I saw take place this weekend during First Strike. It was an incredible tournament full of clutch moments, high-impact plays, and gutsy overtime battles, so let’s get into it.
Highlight 1: Hiko and 100 Thieves winning it all. For Hiko and 100 Thieves, the run to a championship at First Strike was an incredible turnaround from this summer, which was marked by a series of devastating losses to Hiko. Playing alongside a roster of former pros from PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, Hiko and 100 Thieves struggled to gain traction throughout the entire Ignition Series, finishing fifth or below in each of three tournaments they entered. (Hiko and 100 Thieves sat out the fourth and final Ignition Series tournament, Pop Flash.)
And after months of struggling and failing to improve in competition, Hiko and 100 Thieves finally decided it was time to rebuild, cutting ties with their young roster and bringing in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive veteran Nicholas “nitr0” Cannella, Hiko’s former teammate at Team Liquid. Announced Friday, Aug. 14, nitr0’s signing was the first of two high-profile Valorant signings, and 100 Thieves followed it up by signing Joshua “steel” Nissan, another veteran. Together, Hiko and nitr0 promised to create a squad that could “compete at the highest level,” and ultimately, they fulfilled that promise at First Strike, their gamble having paid off in signing 17-year-old prodigies Peter “Asuna” Mazuryk and Quan “dicey” Tran, formerly of Immortals. Despite having only practiced together for a short amount of time (two months!) compared to their more well-established rivals, Hiko and 100 Thieves showed us what they were made of at First Strike, beating out T1, Sentinels and finally TSM for the ultimate prize — a championship. Hiko and 100 Thieves’ victory was no “fluke,” despite what some critics may say, and right now they really are the best Valorant team in North America. They’ve unseated Sentinels as a top-two team in North America, and I’m excited to see more of Hiko and 100 Thieves next year at the Champions Tour.
Surprise 1: Braxton “Brax” Pierce and T1’s bitter 2-0 quarterfinals sweep. Like its rival, 100 Thieves, T1 has struggled to gain traction since this summer’s Ignition Series. Since finishing second at their debut Ignition Series event — the T1 x Nerd Street Gamers Showdown — Brax and T1 did not finish above fifth place at a single Ignition Series tournament and have not finished fourth or higher in a Valorant event since August. But whereas 100 Thieves managed to reverse course and find success at First Strike, T1 saw only failure, falling to Hiko and 100 Thieves 2-0 (13-10 on Haven and 13-10 on Bind) in the First Strike quarterfinals Friday, Dec. 4. And for team captain Brax and T1, First Strike was yet another disappointing failure, compounded by the fact that the team spent much of late summer, like 100 Thieves, rebuilding and restructuring its competitive Valorant roster.
Not only did T1 release its young stars Victor “food” Wong and Austin “crashies” Roberts (who’ve since signed with Team Envy), but it also brought back Tyler “Skadoodle” Latham (T1’s third man) from his leave of absence and signed Sam “DaZeD” Marine and Ha “Spyder” Jung-woo to the starting five. However, while First Strike might’ve been a bust for Brax and his newly rebuilt T1 roster, I wouldn’t write off Brax and T1 just yet. I’m curious to see how they’ll do during the Champions Tour, and if they improve, I’ll reconsider them in the conversation of who’s the best in North America. If not, they’re in real trouble.
Highlight 2: 100 Thieves’ Asuna and that incredible triple kill with Raze’s Showstopper. For me, this might have been the play of the game. The score was 9-7, giving 100 Thieves a narrow, two-point lead against TSM on Bind (Map 2 of 4). And not only did Asuna manage to get the triple-kill on Matthew “Wardell” Yu, James “hazed” Cobb and Taylor “drone” Johnson with Raze’s aptly named Ultimate Ability — Showstopper — but Asuna also got the ace, finishing off Stephen “reltuC” Cutler and Yassine “Subroza” Taoufik with the Phantom. It was an awesome play, and I think it best demonstrates Asuna’s explosive fragging ability as a duelist for 100 Thieves. Plus, I thought that Asuna showed great promise at First Strike overall and made a great debut as one of 100 Thieves’ two younger members. (He’s only 17 years of age, folks! And so is dicey. Hiko and steel are both 30; nitr0 is 25.) Finishing first overall in first-blood kills (46), second in Average Combat Score (245) and fourth in assists (45), Asuna racked up 164 kills on 169 deaths (giving him a solid kill-death ratio of 0.97) as Raze, Phoenix and Reyna. So I’d be on the lookout for Asuna going forward. I think he, dicey and this 100 Thieves squad — the perfect mixture of veteran leadership and young talent — have a lot of potential in Valorant going forward.
Surprise 2: Envy’s disappointing 2-0 loss to TSM in the semifinals. I’ve had high hopes for Envy since it signed Anthony “mummAy” DiPaolo and the rest of Together We Are Terrific as its starting five back in July. I loved reading, following and covering the story of how former Valorant amateurs such as mummAy and his teammates made their way through the play-in qualifiers, competed at a high level among the pros and ultimately became pros themselves by signing with Envy. And I was especially grateful for the interview I got with mummAy back in July for Issue 13. In some ways, I’m rooting for Envy and mummAy because of their story as amateurs-turned-pros. So, not only was I excited to see them compete in Pop Flash back in September, when they faced off against former Ignition Series winner Sentinels in Envy’s first grand-final appearance, but I also followed along as Envy signed food and crashies from T1, replacing Adam “aKis” Kisseberth and Abdo “c4Lypso” Agha. I thought food and crashies were two good signings for Envy, and I was curious to see how they’d perform alongside mummAy and the crew at First Strike. But despite being the No. 1 seed in the playoffs this weekend, Envy struggled to make headway at First Strike, falling to TSM 2-0 (13-7 on Ascent and 13-5 on Split) in the semifinals Saturday, Dec. 5. Watching mummAy, food, crashies and Envy play, I thought they played well enough, but they’ll need to do better if they want to unseat a two-time Ignition Series champion like TSM (or Sentinels) or challenge 100 Thieves, North America’s newly crowned First Strike champions. I haven’t given up on mummAy and Envy yet by any means — never count out an underdog who’s shown some bite — and I’m excited to hopefully see them play at the Champions Tour next year.
Highlight 3: TSM’s Subroza popping off as Raze. Watching Subroza play was truly one of the best parts of watching First Strike this weekend. He was unbelievable. An absolute joy and a privilege to watch. Many times throughout the grand final, when it seemed like TSM was finally cracking under the pressure and was struggling to win key rounds against 100 Thieves, it seemed like Subroza was the one player on TSM (other than drone) who could will this team to victory on rounds it had no business winning. While I’ve praised drone in the past for his performances as Phoenix — his Run It Back is one of the best in North America — I’ve not given as much of a spotlight to Subroza, which is a crime. He was incredible throughout pretty much all of First Strike, and his 90-degree turn and kill on steel (flanking as Killjoy) was one of the best plays I saw all weekend. I’m still not sure how he got that frag, but it helped put TSM up 10-6 on Ascent (Map 4 of 5). And as someone who wanted TSM and 100 Thieves to go all the way to Map 5 (Icebox), I wasn’t complaining about Subroza’s heroics. While we all know what Wardell can do as Jett, with his god-tier aim and his trusty Operator in hand, I thought First Strike really showed me a lot of Subroza’s capabilities. Subroza also staged some really great performances against Envy in the semifinals Saturday, Dec. 5, where he racked up some major frags against his opponents. Finishing fourth in Average Combat Score (241.5), ninth in kill-death ratio (1.11: 129 kills on 116 deaths) and third in first-blood kills (tied with drone for 21), Subroza showed great skill as one of TSM’s best players (and duelists) throughout First Strike.
Surprise 3: Jay “sinatraa” Won and Sentinels struggling at First Strike. Let me preface this surprise by saying that I thought sinatraa and Sentinels played well despite the incredibly difficult circumstances they were under entering the tournament. Not only did Sentinels’ Shazeb “ShahZaM” Khan suffer a deep personal loss in his father’s passing a week before First Strike began — my deepest condolences to him as someone who has also recently lost a loved one — but sinatraa, ShahZaM and Sentinels were also completely unable to practice going into First Strike. And despite having not played together or scrimmaged together for two weeks before First Strike, I thought Sentinels played well against FaZe Clan and 100 Thieves, against whom they ultimately met their demise, 2-1 in the semifinals. However, I was surprised by the fact that sinatraa — one of the best, most explosive fraggers in North America — failed to make a big showing at First Strike. While I thought ShahZam played some really excellent Valorant as Sova and Jett, especially taking into account the difficult circumstances he was under, I thought sinatraa really struggled, even taking into account those same difficult circumstances. Sinatraa never seemed to find his rhythm against 100 Thieves, even as he wielded his trusty Odin, spraying bullets through the walls of Haven and Bind. Playing Phoenix, Raza and Sova, sinatraa finished with a subpar Average Combat Score of 202.6 and kill-death ratio of 0.99 (78 kills on 79 deaths). While those numbers were disappointing, and I thought sinatraa’s performance overall was somewhat muted compared to his teammates (and compared to sinatraa’s usual explosiveness in Valorant), I’m sure sinatraa and Sentinels will be back and will make a much bigger splash at next year’s Champions Tour. Like TSM, Sentinels have won two Ignition Series titles — PAX Arena and Pop Flash — so I wouldn’t count them out just yet by any means. And I certainly wouldn’t count out sinatraa, who’s shown the same flashes of greatness in Riot Games’ new shooter that he once showed in Overwatch.
“THE BEST VALORANT TEAM IN NORTH AMERICA”: Hiko, 100 Thieves topple 2-time Ignition Series champ TSM 3-1 in First Strike grand final, winning team’s 1st Valorant championship after summer of devastating losses
Emerging as North America’s first Valorant champions after months of rebuilding and struggle, 100 Thieves defeated TSM — the two-time Ignition Series winner — 3-1 in the First Strike grand final Sunday, Dec. 6.
“GG TSM we won 3-1 and WIN 1st place in FIRST STRIKE!!!!!” 100 Thieves team captain Spencer “Hiko” Martin tweeted after the match. “LETS GOOOOOOOO!!!”
For Hiko and 100 Thieves, the upset over TSM — winner of the T1 x Nerd Street Gamers Showdown and the FaZe Clan Invitational — marked a stunned reversal after a summer of devastating losses to the 30-year-old self-described “boomer” and his team.
After finishing fifth or below in each of the three Ignition Series tournaments they entered over the summer, Hiko and 100 Thieves cut ties with four of their starters (all of them former pros from PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds), sat out Pop Flash (the fourth and final Ignition Series tournament) and began rebuilding their roster from the ground up.
And not only did they immediately draw critics’ attention by signing Nicholas “nitr0” Cannella — Hiko’s former teammate from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive — but they also followed it up by signing Joshua “steel” Nissan, another Counter-Strike veteran, as well as 17-year-old prodigies Peter “Asuna” Mazuryk and Quan “dicey” Tran, formerly of Immortals’ Valorant squad.
For fans, critics and rivals of 100 Thieves alike, the question became whether Hiko and his brand-new, two-month-old roster would live up to the hype and expectations surrounding them at First Strike, or whether their success (or failure) would be a “fluke” (or a “disappointment”) befitting a “hoodie organization.”
Silencing all doubt and make a joke out of the “fluke” and “hoodie” narratives, Hiko and his newly rebuilt 100 Thieves squad outplayed three of the top Valorant teams in North America — T1, Sentinels (also a two-time Ignition Series winner) and TSM — and dropped only two maps in the process during the single-elimination playoffs..
“I think we’ve definitely set a statement now that we are one of, if not the best team in North America,” Hiko said on the official livestream after the grand final against TSM concluded.
Widely considered 100 Thieves’ MVP after the event, Hiko led First Strike in kill-death ratio (1.39: 165 kills on 119 deaths), assists (81) and clutches (10 total; six alone in the grand final against TSM). Playing Sova and Raze, Hiko also tallied a 219.4 Average Combat Score and finished seventh in average damage per round (at 145.1 ADR).
Nitr0, Hiko’s former teammate from Team Liquid and Counter-Strike, finished with a solid 1.05 KD ratio (154 kills on 147 deaths), 59 assists (2nd in First Strike) and a decent 198.1 ACS, playing Omen exclusively throughout the event.
While Hiko’s clutches and deadly use of Shock Darts and Hunter’s Fury won 100 Thieves many close battles, nitr0’s flanks, teleports, and masterful use of Dark Cover and Paranoia made him a force to be feared from the shadows.
“We’re just getting started. Time to make 2021 ours,” Hiko tweeted after 100 Thieves’ grand final win. “To all the fans, thank you for believing in us. We made our statement.”
During the best-of-five grand final against TSM, Hiko and 100 Thieves opened with two narrow wins (15-13 on Split and 13-11 on Bind) before dropping Map 3 (Ascent) 13-7 to TSM on a wide, six-point margin.
However, Hiko and 100 Thieves quickly rebounded with a 13-7 win of their own on the next map, Haven, winning it all before TSM and 100 Thieves could even have a chance to check out the final map, Icebox.
The win netted 100 Thieves their first championship in Valorant, a fire First Strike trophy and $40,000 in prize money — the team’s largest winnings in Valorant yet.
For its part, TSM took home second place and a respectable silver-medal prize of $20,000.
To reach the grand final against TSM, 100 Thieves narrowly swept T1 2-0 (13-10 on Haven and 13-10 on Bind) in the quarterfinals Friday, Dec. 4, and then overpowered Sentinels — winner of PAX Arena and Pop Flash — 2-1 in the hard-fought semifinals Saturday, Dec. 5.
In the semifinals against Sentinels, 100 Thieves bookended a 13-9, middle-round loss on Haven with an overtime, 14-12 win on Icebox and a solid, close-out win on Bind, 13-9, sending Sentinels home with a disappointing third-fourth place finish.
Similarly, to reach the grand final, TSM swept Renegades (13-1 on Ascent and 13-5 Bind) in the quarterfinals and Team Envy (13-7 on Ascent and 13-5 on Split) in the semifinals 2-0.
Finishing in third-fourth place together, Envy (knocked out by TSM) and Sentinels (knocked out by 100 Thieves) each took home the bronze-medal prize of $10,000.
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.