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Things continue to heat up in Los Angeles. KIA Forums is hosting the final stage of the VALORANT Champions 2023 play-offs, the biggest championship in the history of VALORANT comps. Today, the penultimate match will be played on the championship stage.
There are 3 teams in the race for the $1,000,000 top prize pool. Among them are the hosts Evil Geniuses and the reigning world champions LOUD. We will talk about them in more detail.
It is LOUD and EG that will compete for the second slot in the grand finals, where Paper Rex is already waiting for the winner of the pair. The American battle between LOUD and Evil Geniuses promises to be very hot.
We will try to find out who will be stronger in this fight and who will be the grand-finalist of the most prestigious tournament.
Let's go.
Form LOUD
We open the match with an analysis of LOUD's form. In this match the Brazilian giants play the first number one with odds to win at 1.6.
It is quite unexpected to see LOUD as favourites. Before the Long March of the championship LOUD were among the contenders for the cup, but far from being the clear favourite, but here they are and they are the favourites.
LOUD have been at the top of their game during the 2022 season. They played five championships in the past year, of which they won 3.
The list of triumphs includes VCT 2022: Brazil Stage 1 Challengers, VCT 2022: Brazil Stage 2 Challengers, but most importantly last year's VALORANT Champions 2022.
LOUD have maintained their ability this season. They started it with a top-2 finish at LOCK//IN Sao Paulo, and followed it up with a win at their home, the VCT 2023: Americas League.
Before Champions 2023, LOUD attended another international event. That was VCT 2023: Masters Tokyo, where the 2022 World Champions failed to reach the top. Their journey at the Tokyo Masters was interrupted by EDward Gaming, knocking LOUD out of the event at the Top 8 stage.
- LOUD lineup: aspas, Less, saadhak, cauanzin, tuyz .
The "newcomers" of the line-up are cauanzin and tuyz. They replaced pANcada and Sacy in November last year and since then represent The International heresy LOUD on the international and home stage.
In the first match of VALORANT Champions 2023, the reigning world champions faced South Korea's first team DRX. The tense match ended in favour of the latter with a score of 2-1.
Then LOUD had to play for survival against Liquid. The Brazilians outclassed their European counterparts and closed the series 2-0, defeating Liquid 13-2 and 13-8.
After a solid win over Liquid, LOUD met another EMEA resident of the region, NaVi. Born to win fought fiercely, but after three lengthy maps 13-11 to Pearl, 11-13 to Ascent and 11-13 to Bind, Natus Vincere Ledgeili, putting LOUD through to the play-offs.
So far, the centrepiece match at Champions 2023 has been the clash with Fnatic. The reigning world champions not only outplayed the first challenger for the crown this year, but did it in a dry run, which adds weight.
After triumphing against Fnatic LOUD Ledge or Paper Rex in the game for the top 3, but knocked EDG out of the tournament in the second round of the lower grid, avenging their loss at Tokyo Masters 2023. The last match ended on a 2-1 scoreline in favour of the Brazilians.
In the match for the small final of VALORANT Champions 2023 LOUD played again against Fnatic, who they met in the first round of the play-offs. The match was one of the highlights of the VALORANT Champions and LOUD once again managed to outplay the main favourite of the Champions, this time definitively.
LOUD Mappool
LOUD's most popular maps are Split and Ascent. Both have been played 11 times, where the former has a 64% win rate and the latter has a 73% win rate.
In addition, love Pearl. There in 9 matches LOUD has a 56% win rate.
The worst is at Lotus, where the Brazilians managed to win 3 matches in 3 matches.
Evil Geniuses form
Let's continue with the analysis of Evil Geniuses' form. In this match, the team plays in the status of an outsider. The odds for the World Cup hosts to win are at around 2.5.
EG is definitely a strong team, otherwise they would not have made it to the top 3. The home World Championship factor is also a plus, but they are far from LOUD in terms of overall achievement.
Evil Geniuses started the year by playing at LOCK//IN Sao Paulo. At the opening tournament of the new VCT system EG took TOP-16, which even if they wanted to, is not a good result.
After LOCK//IN, Evil Geniuses played the regular league of VCT 2023: Americas. Being TOP-1 in North America, the club finished VCT 2023: Americas League TOP-3.
The last tournament before VALORANT Champions 2023 was VCT: Masters Tokyo 2023. EG made it to the grand finals, but were stomped by Fnatic in the title match.
- EG roster: Boostio, Ethan, jawgemo, C0M, Demon1 .
Roster is famous for its thrashtalk, and the sqThe International essence of this is Boostio and Demon1. As long as their behaviour is not punishable, then everything works.
In the group stage "evil geniuses" easily took the top 1, leaving behind FUT, T1 and FPX. In play-offs the first opponent of EG was EDG, who made the "evil geniuses" sweat on the first map, which EG eventually gave away (12-14 Split). Next up were two easy 13-5 losses to Ascent and Pearl.
In the match to advance to the grand finals, Evil Geniuses played against Paper Rex. The match was similar to the LOUD and Fnatic game and was perhaps even more colourful. Paper Rex managed to comeback after the first given maps and eventually turned the game in their favour, winning 2-1 with a dopa on the decisive Pearl (13-15 in favour of PR).
Mappool EG.
The most played map EG is Ascent. There "born to win" has 17 matches and 71% wins.
Another one of the handy maps is Pearl. It has 91% wins in 11 matches.
In the top 3 is Fracture with 64% wins in 11 matches.
History of head-to-head meetings between EG and LOUD
LOUD and EG have played each other three times this season. Two of the matches took place at VCT America 2023 and the most recent head-to-head match was at Masters Tokyo 2023. LOUD won two times in the domestic league, but EG won at the Masters.
Predicted result of EG vs LOUD at VALORANT Champions 2023
Champions 2023 is a re-match tournament. We have watched the re-matches of the Champions games directly (LOUD and Fnatic) on numerous occasions, and now we will watch the re-match for the VCT Masters Tokyo 2023 Grand Final. Will the result be identical to what we saw at Tokyo Major e? Possibly. Will there be a struggle here - I think so. Still, I believe in LOUD at Champions and will be waiting for their second triumph at the Champions Series.
Bottom line: LOUD wins.
