Cloud9 Blue win the NSG Open Qualifier, 16 teams set to play next week

Published on October 31st, 2020. Edited on November 2nd, 2020 at 11:45 PM CET

The First Strike North America - NSG Tournament - Open Qualifier has now wrapped up, after five days of VALORANT competition. 128 teams were reduced to 16 First Strike North America - NSG Tournament - Closed Qualifier participants and one champion. The best-of-3 format led to less upsets than we would’ve otherwise seen, and we got some fantastic games as the bracket wound down. The 16 closed qualifier participants, and their respective seeds, are:

1. Cloud9 Blue 2. Team Envy 3. TSM 4. Gen.G 5-8. Sentinels 5-8. T1 5-8. 100 Thieves 5-8. The Slimy Boogermen 9-16. Spot Up 9-16. XSET Gaming 9-16. Complexity 9-16. Luminosity Gaming 9-16. Renegades 9-16. Dignitas 9-16. Equinox Esports 9-16. Built By Gamers

For the first several days of the event, wehad the best teams in the region predictably taking down unknown mixes. The biggest upset in the first few rounds would be beastcoast falling out in the round of 64, though Sentinels and NRG Esports also dropped maps. But the round of 32 is where it really got interesting.

The newly signed Cloud9 White found themselves beaten by The Slimy Boogermen. FaZe Clan’s struggles continued as they fell out to Equinox Esports. 100 Thieves and Moon Raccoons played an incredibly tight and entertaining match, though 100 Thieves were somewhat hampered by a bug that arose due to Riot Games rolling back the patch they put out mid-tournament.

Immortals’s promising new roster found themselves eliminated at the hands of upstarts XSET, and the brand-new NRG roster looked completely outclassed at the hands of Complexity. Despite some heroics from Kelden "Boostio" Pupello, Spacestation Gaming also were eliminated in this stage.

In a Haven map chock full of ridiculous highlights, Eric "Kanpeki" Xu pulled it out to help Spot Up to the victory.

By far the biggest upset surprise was NYFU failing to advance to the closed qualifier after their defeat at the hands of Luminosity Gaming. Having come in with so much momentum off their victory in the Renegades x NSG VALORANT Invitational, it’s a shock not to see Andbox in the first direct qualifier to First Strike next week.

Ultimately, It was Cloud9 who took home the #1 spot, off the back of a fantastic event. Most notably, Josh "shinobi" Abastado looked much improved from previous events, putting up 176 ACS and 1 KD over the course of the event, and making several big plays.

Envy grabbed themselves second place in their first outing with new additions Austin "crashies" Roberts and Victor "Victor" Wong. The team looked solid, particularly on Ascent and Bind where they sported +80% win rates.

Third place went to TSM, who were back to prove they were still among North America’s best. Yassine "Subroza" Taoufik was a huge difference-maker for TSM this event, finding himself on Omen and putting up 243 ACS and 1.22 KD. We also saw some other role changes for the team this tournament, with Stephen "reltuC" Cutler on Sova and James "hazed" Cobb on Cypher, though he sometimes brought out Viper on Split while reltuC played Killjoy.

Finally, we have Gen.G Esports. In their first event with Shawn "Shawn" O'Riley, Gen.G looked like an entirely different team. Shawn took over a duelist role for the team, with Anthony "gMd" Guimond moving over to Omen, and Shawn generally played fantastic with 243 ACS and 1.31 KD, and many big clutches.

Sentinels are certainly the biggest surprise to see outside of the top 4. The most dominant team in North America, and #1 on THESPIKE.GG’s North American rankings by a wide margin, Sentinels looked shaky this event, and most importantly looked like they’d failed to adapt to the meta. They were taken advantage of first by Jonathan "Silenx" Huntington and then by Gen.G’s Shawn, who each played Reyna. The character’s high mobility and ability to jump in and out of engagements seemed to completely fluster the Sentinels, and they’ll have adaptation to do for the closed qualifier.

100 Thieves’ new roster got off to a pretty good start, and followed up their close match against Moon Raccoons with a destruction of Dignitas. However, they were torn apart by Subroza’s Omen. Top 8 isn’t a bad debut by any means, but they’ll need to aim higher for the closed qualifier.

T1 and The Slimy Boogermen round out the top 8. T1 looked okay in this event, but had one of the most atrocious Split maps ever against Envy. They did the exact same thing every round: sat Brax’s Cypher outside A and Spyder’s Omen outside B Garage, pushed Mid with their remaining 3 members, waiting until there were 20 seconds left on the clock, and tried to hit a site. It was uninspired and completely shut down by Envy. T1 has promise, but also has work to do to be able to hit it. As for the Boogermen, they surprised a lot of teams in this event, even giving Cloud9 Blue a run for their money, so they’ll have even more upset potential in the closed qualifier.

Finally, we have the last 8. There’s plenty of surprises here. Spot Up are back on a big VALORANT stage for the since June, and XSET’s new roster looked very promising in their qualification run. Complexity may have finally clicked with new additions Mike "sharky" Gariti and Jonah "JonahP" Pulice, and Luminosity’s surprise win over Andbox puts them in contention too: they’re now fielding Adam "mada" Pampuch in their starting lineup, and he’s made a large difference for them.

Positional swaps for Renegades seem to have worked wonders, as Alexander "retrQ" Kadan’s Jett was a huge factor in their success this week. Dignitas looked pretty good with new additions Bryan "mAKKALOFF" Drouillard and Chad "oderus" Miller, but they didn’t set the world on fire either. Similarly, Equinox had a pretty good event with their upset over FaZe, but didn’t have an incredibly close match against Cloud9. Finally, Built By Gamers’ new roster performed quite well, but fell out to the Boogermen in a very close 3-game set.

The Nerd Street Gamers Tournament takes place from November 4th-8th next week, and advances the top 4 teams to the First Strike North America Regional Final. Making top 8 is also a priority, as that will mean you don’t have to go through the next open qualifier. The event will be played on a new patch, though the new map Icebox and new agent Skye will still be disabled. Be sure to tune in on twitch.tv/nerdstgamers or twitch.tv/Valorant_Esports_NA!

UPDATE: Nerd Street Gamers have revealed the official groups for the closed qualifier:

Group A sees the champions, Cloud9 Blue, paired with 100 Thieves, Luminosity, and XSET in a very tough group. C9 and 100T are certainly the favourites to advance here, but Luminosity and XSET are not pushovers and can easily take advantage of an unprepared opponent. Gen.G draw T1, Complexity, and Equinox in a group that, outside of the favourites Gen.G, could see anyone grab second place. Team Envy are placed with Sentinels, Dignitas, and Spot Up in what may be the group of death. Dignitas will be the least happy as they have to be considered the odd team out here. Lastly, Group D likely sees TSM through in first place with little trouble, and if the Boogermen show the performance they did this week, they're probably the team chasing the closest.

The brackets are available on the event page: First Strike North America - NSG Tournament - Closed Qualifier.