Setting expectations for South American teams at Valorant Champions 2022

South America has four teams (KRU, LOUD, Leviatan, FURIA) represented at Valorant Champions 2022, from both competitive regions on the continent. Can any of them challenge for the crown?

This will be the first VCT Champions which will have fans in the stadium as well. Thus the stakes for each team to perform are quite high. We have seen how teams from North America and Europe have majorly dominated the Valorant scene. Yet, there is one region that has been close to winning it all and sadly losing it at the end. The South American region of Valorant consists of majorly the raw, high-octane gameplay which many can’t wait to see. But can this playing style win it all in the upcoming tournament, well let us explore and figure that out?

Expectations from LATAM and Brasil teams at VCT Champions 2022

Both South American regions are known for their high-octane aggressive gameplay. As such neither team in the region can even imagine of slowing down their gameplay. While this does come at the cost of very few teams in the region knowing how to counter the passive approach by other teams.

While pushing onto a site, teams such as LOUD, KRU, Leviatan and FURIA aren’t shy to use most of their utility for this reason. As such this then leads to the teams planting and hoping for good angles for the post plan. While this approach has not been countered every single time, certain teams have gotten other ideas. The last time LOUD played in Masters they lost both their opening matches in the group stages. While each game was a close one their play style was easily countered by both teams.

The counter to the aggressive LOUD playstyle was one with passiveness and to playing post-plant. During a match between LOUD and OpTic Gaming, we saw how multiple plans to counter the playstyle were executed. The first is to give site control for LOUD to plant, followed by a quick rush while the spike is being planted. As a result both teams had all their players on site, but LOUD was be handicapped as one player would be planting the spike. This would often lead to Optic rushing into the site to get as many kills as possible and refuse the spike. This tactic worked majorly in Optic’s favor helping them win 9 rounds on defense.

Fast executes are done great by South American teams, but they may all fall short to the same post-plant counter. How both strategies clash at Champions 2022 remains to be seen.

How far into VCT Champions can these four push?

It’s hard to predict how far will teams from this region go. This is due to the massive randomness as well as the variety that they can play with. LOUD has been the favorite for many tournaments since their last Finals in VCT Masters Reykjavik. But since then no SA team has come to the top 4 in the VCT Masters tournament.

KRU defeated LOUD during the Group Stages, but were eliminated soon after. While FURIA didn’t make it to any of the recent VCT Masters tournaments, and last we saw them they got eliminated by KRU. Leviatan were the only team for SA who was a part of the Playoffs round in VCT Masters. They went on to lose their first game in the playoffs, winning the next one against XSET and then losing to Fnatic in the top 8 matches.

We can expect two out of four to make it into Playoffs, but I believe neither would go further then Round 1 in Playoffs:

• FURIA will be the team who will most likely be out early, due to them being in the group of death with Fnatic and 100Thieves.
• KRU will be facing off against the current VCT Masters winner FunPlus Phoenix. It would lead to quite the major upset if KRU can make it happen to win against FPX and win their next game to qualify for the playoffs.
• LOUD will be facing off against ZETA Division and if we all believe that faith is real. We could see LOUD vs Optic yet again this year. Both need to mirror their results against other teams’ and this game would decide the faith of both teams.
• Leviatan is in a tough spot as well as they will be facing off against Team Liquid in their first game in the tournament. While they are in another group of death with Paper Rex also being present.

As such it will be quite interesting to even see two out of the four South American teams make it to the Playoff Stages in Istanbul. I comfortably predict the likely candidates to make Playoffs are LOUD and KRU Esports.