The three games on Day 2 of Valorant Conquerors Championship Group Stage was eventful, to say the least. We saw Crash Landing on You and Damaru Gaming get eliminated from the event while Team Exploit became the first ones to qualify for the knockouts.
The action started with Exceeli Esports and Crash Landing on You battling each other in the Elimination match of Group A. Exceeli absolutely blanked CLOY on Haven, with a 12-0 half as the Attackers. CLOY mounted a mini-comeback but Exceeli finished the map in style, winning a thrifty to close Haven out 13-5. CLOY went for a Sova-less composition on Bind, favouring the Breach pick. The proceedings were much better for the Srilankan hope, with CLOY tying things up at 7-7. However, two opening kills from Shihab Ahmed ‘Kyojin’ Saikat on the Raze saw Exceeli seal Bind with a 13-10 win to take the series 2-0
The second eliminator featured Salt Esports and Damaru Gaming, with the former running into technical and network difficulties at the beginning on Split, causing them to play almost the entire first half a man down. However, Salt Esports recovered and took advantage of Damaru’s inexperience and errors to mount a comeback and take the map 15-13. Bind was a much more convincing affair. While Damaru took an early 4-0 lead, Salt Esports came back into the game with conviction, ending the map 13-5 and the series 2-0 to knock Damaru out of the VCC Main Event in the Group Stages.
On to the most anticipated match of the day, Velocity Gaming took on Team Exploit to find out who will book their slot in the Semi-Finals as the top seed from Group A. VLT exerted early dominance on their map pick, Icebox, racing to a 6-0 lead. It could be chalked down to a game of two halves, with Mohit ‘mw1’ Wakle asserting dominance on VLT’s attack while Usman ‘soulM8’ Arain reigned supreme in the second half as Team Exploit earned a 13-10 win on Icebox to take VLT’s map pick. VLT responded in style, nullifying Exploit’s Attacking threat on Ascent to respond with a 13-1 win on the latter’s map pick. Breeze was evenly poised at one point of time, with VLT courting a minor 8-7 lead. However, Mustafa ‘shooterR’ Kamal’s Skye came online in the latter stages as he mercilessly slaughtered VLT players, with a quad-kill on the 22nd round sealing a 13-9 win for Exploit on Breeze.
With the win, Exploit are now into the knockouts and will play the second seed to emerge from Group B. VLT will now face Exceeli to decide who joins Exploit in the knockout phase from Group A. There are three matches lined up on Day 3, with the Winner’s Bracket match between Global Esports and Enigma Gaming kicking things off. We will then witness the match between VLT and Exceeli while the day’s action ends with the loser of the first match facing Salt Esports in the Group B decider. By the end of Day 3, we will get our four qualified teams for the knockout phase that will go head-to-head in a double-elimination format from the 27th of August.
The highlights for Day 2 would definitely include the 17 First Kills provided by mw1 in the three-map series defeat against Team Exploit, who had Abdul Sami ‘k1ng’ Khero win 3 of his 7 clutch situations. shooterR proved to be the ultimate carry with Skye for Exploit, recording 30 frags on Breeze.
