In preparation for the forthcoming EMEA last-chance qualification competition, Acend has revealed that they have acquired the services of Travis “L1NK” Mendoza, a player who formerly competed for Team Liquid. His predecessor, Aleksander “zeek” Zygmunt, who was demoted one month earlier, will be replaced by him.
Team Liquid benched L1NK as the club restructured their Valorant roster. After reaching great heights in 2021, neither Acend nor Team Liquid had a very successful season on the Valorant Champions Tour in 2022.
L1NK will be joining a team that competed in the EMEA VCT Stage 2 Challengers group stage and fared rather well in the competition before being eliminated in the first round of the playoffs.
In an effort to better their squad, Liquid switched out L1NK for stand-in player Aurimas “Dreamas” Zablockis midway through the group stage. Despite this change, the team was eliminated from the competition before the playoffs began. They have not yet revealed who will take the role of the British footballer in a permanent capacity.
Acend has gone through a number of transitions since the conclusion of its successful run in the Valorant Champions tournament in 2021. Mehmet Yaz ‘cNed’ Pek and Patryk’starxo’ Kopczynski are the only two players from that roster who are still active; the rest of the players were either demoted to the bench or transferred to other organizations.
If Acend hopes to compete in the 2022 Valorant Champions tournament, they will need to win a challenging matchup first. They will have to compete against M3C, the team who won the VCT Stage 2 playoffs match between the two of them 2-0, and they may have to win against Liquid, G2 Esports, and Guild Esports as well in order to qualify for the international competition.
Each of the three teams has competed at the international level, and with the exception of Team Liquid, they have maintained reasonably steady rosters throughout Stage 2.
Since L1NK played a variety of agents while he was with Liquid during the course of his stint with the team, it is likely that he will take over the flex role for Acend and replace Zeek one-for-one. Even though he has 11 agents that he has played professionally, the majority of his matches have been on Sage, Omen, Brimstone, and Breach.
On August 7, Acend will compete in the VCT EMEA LCQ to begin their journey back to the Valorant Champions.
