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The Guard suffered a loss to Paper Rex on Saturday at VALORANT Champions Tour 2022 Stage 1 Masters Reykjavík. The American-based team were swept by their Singapore counterparts, losing both maps.
Coach Mathew “mCe” Elmore has ruled the loss as a result of the inability of the team’s rising star, Trent “trent” Cairns, to listen to music during the competition. While he has always been listening to music during his games prior to this time, he was prevented from doing so at the VCT Masters Reykjavík in Iceland. His go-to method of reducing edginess and retaining focus was apparently not allowed on LAN.
With his ability to listen to music hampered, the 17-year old couldn’t perform at his best, thereby losing the game.
His coach – a.k.a. ‘the Guard-father’ – disclosed in an interview the difficulties the team have had to face adapting to LAN in Reykjavik, as compared to their boot camp in Texas. These differences he suggested would be addressed if the players learn to adapt to the “standard setups”.
“The guys have got to get used to more standard setups,” mCe suggested.
“Trent listens to music while he plays, and [he wasn’t] allowed to listen to music here. It could be a nerves thing that helps him calm down, and these are things that we learned that were too late to try and switch.”
When trent found out he was not allowed to listen to music, he was shocked. So was mCe when he found out that his player had been beating the best of NA VALORANT with music blasting as his focus tool. The player’s talent was witnessed during the NA Challengers group stage and playoffs as he solidified himself as a rising star.
“I found out when we got here he was listening to music,” mCe said.
“Today mid-match he opened Spotify and realized that he was actually super nervous and uncomfortable. He asked the admin if he could play music, [but] the admin said ‘no’.”
The coach admitted that all his players, including Michael “neT” Bernet, Jacob “valyn” Batio, Jonah “JonahP” Pulice, and Ha “Sayaplayer” Jung-woo, were nervous, but trent had it worse with Masters Reykjavik being his first event on the big stage.
“I don’t think [trent’s level of play] was as bad as trent thought,” mCe said.
“I think he didn’t play up to his level and I think he got in his head because of it. Comments online are pretty brutal anytime you lose anything like this and I think it definitely got to the guys a little bit.”
It was deduced that the young player’s playlist will likely include songs from Kanye West and Juice WRLD, but more especially those from Lil Uzi Vert.
The Guard-father has resorted to having the players take a well-deserved break as they have been very active since January 7.
