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Leviatán continued their winning streak in the 2022 VALORANT Champions tournament and became the first franchise to advance past the group stage.
The team started their journey in the tournament with an intense match against Team Liquid, which they won in a startling upset.
Leviatán’s most recent match was with Singaporean organization Paper Rex, whom they defeated with a 2-0 record. While PRX are more experienced in international competitions, Leviatán have been showing massive improvements during the competition. The last few months saw the team climb to become one of their region’s top esports franchises and perform several upsets in international matches.
The Latin American team and PRX went head-to-head in the Group A winners’ match, with the winner of the matchup advancing to the playoffs. Leviatán showed that their clean sweep against Team Liquid was no mere fluke when they took down PRX in the series.
Although they lost, Paper Rex took a number of precautions while playing against their opponent. Taking note of Leviatán’s game with Liquid, PRX removed the team’s most favored map, Ascent, from the picks. The move was in a bid to stop Leviatán’s Vicente “Tacolilla” Compagnon from executing another round of impressive gameplay on the map.
Leviatán settled on Haven as the series’ first map pick. Haven has been shown to be the LATAM squad’s area of expertise. The team’s match with Liquid showed off Leviatán’s noticeable strategy development compared to their performance two months prior in the Masters Copenhagen.
The first half of Haven began with the Latin American team in the lead. However, further into the map, PRX was able to get a grip on the situation and ended the half with a 6-6 tie. Leviatán carried on their winning streak in the second half by bagging pistol rounds wins. The map’s second half was an entirely different experience for PRX, as Leviatán won the map with a 13-8 record.
The second map, Bind, was picked by PRX and did not hold the best memories for Leviatán. The map was where the team lost to Fnatic in July in the Masters Copenhagen’s longest overtime.
PRX tried to secure a win on the map by pairing Jason “f0rsakeN” Susanto with the Yoru agent. The Singaporean team is known for their performance with Yoru, and as a result of their pick, they rounded up this year’s Champions’ agents roster. Two days into the tournament, all the agents in the game have been made use of.
Tacolilla, Leviatán’s leading Chamber player, picked a different agent from the team’s previous choice, which utilized an aggressive game plan when they played Bind in the Masters Copenhagen.
While making use of Skye, Leviatán was able to begin Bind with closer fights against their opponents. The team capitalized on the change to a new agent, but PRX countered all their actions.
The map ended with a close victory (13-11) in favor of Leviatán, with PRX narrowly missing out on the opportunity to force a third map. The team was initially in the lead, but made some costly mistakes in round 21 of the map. As a result, Leviatán ended the map with no mention of overtime.
Although Tacolilla usually dazzled with his performance in matches, the star player on Leviatán’s roster in their game against PRX was Fabian “Shyy” Usnayo. The team’s ability to make their entire roster give a noticeably better performance displayed their rapid growth in the past months.
The Latin American team’s win earned them the spot of the first team to move past the group stage in the VCT Champions. The next stage of the event is the playoffs stage, and Leviatán will have ample time to rest their players.
