Crazy Raccoon earn Japan's Iceland berth

3 teams came into Japan’s VCT 2021 - Stage 2 - Japan - Challengers Finals as favourites. Crazy Raccoon, Masters champions. ZETA DIVISION, who had had their old form reawakened by some role swaps. And NORTHEPTION, home of the famed “Korean Jett”, Park "Seoldam" Sang-min. And that’s not to mention some of the region’s other challengers - SCARZ and FAV gaming just to name a few. But only one team would get to represent the region in Iceland. Who made their shot count?

Upper Bracket

Things started out very well for the fan favourites NORTHEPTION with a 2-0 victory over Lag Gaming. Seoldam has been slowly moving over to a support role, and played exclusively Skye throughout the series, to great effect. He may be known on Youtube for his flashy Jett plays, but in competitive play he’s become one of Japan’s best, a lurker with great effect. Crazy Raccoon and JUPITER would also see themselves through the first round.

While this happened, SCARZ and FAV played a very tight series. SCARZ made the additions of Lim "LOB" Byung-gun and Go "C1nder" Jae-hyuk coming into VCT Stage 2, signings that have paid off big-time. They’d take a 2-1 victory, though they lost Icebox 13-2 in a dominant performance by FAV.

Nth and CR were next up in the bracket, in what was a great match. At 13-7, Haven was the only map that didn’t go to overtime. Throughout the series, Ibuki "Meiy" Seki proved himself as a star for NORTHEPTION right alongside Seoldam.

Ultimately, though, CR were too clutch, and Nth just couldn’t get things done. 15-13, a heartbreaker on Bind, put CR through to upper finals and sent Nth down. On the other side of the bracket, JUPITER vs SCARZ would be a one-sided affair, going in favour of the region’s top team since beta 2-0.

This lined up a JUPITER-Crazy Raccoon upper final. These two teams had met in the Stage 1 Masters finals, which went in favour of Crazy Raccoon, but had more recently played in Stage 2 Challengers 1, where JUPITER came out ahead. The whole tournament had been a continuation of role swaps for JUPITER that they’d been running all throughout Stage 2, with Ryo "barce" Takebayashi taking up more and more duelists while Shogo "takej" Takemori took supports, and Kouji "Laz" Ushida and Oshiro "Reita" Ryu flexed everywhere. While it had worked for them last time, though, it wasn’t going to happen again. Crazy Raccoon are such a solid team - Jyousuke "zepher" Matsuda is one of the most clutch players you’ll ever see and Byeon "Munchkin" Sang-beom always brings the heat as the other duelist. At a 2-1 scoreline, CR headed to the grand finals.

Lower Bracket

After Lag and FENNEL were eliminated early, we got some interesting matches. NORTHEPTION would end up falling out unexpectedly early, to FAV, in a disappointing result for the team. That didn’t stop Seoldam from collecting some sick clips for his montages, though.

Nth weren’t the only upper bracket team eliminated in this stage, though, as REJECT took down SCARZ 2-0 in another surprising result. REJECT were only just beginning to turn the heat on, though, as they’d follow that up with another big win over FAV. This one was very one-sided, with scorelines of 13-4 and 13-8. Heading into the final day of play, we had 3 teams - CR and JUPITER as favourites, and a red-hot REJECT looking to challenge.

In a 2-1 lower bracket series, JUPITER would eliminate REJECT by some pretty big scorelines, 13-7 on Bind and 13-5 on Haven. This set them up for the grand finals, yet another rematch with Crazy Raccoon.

Finals

The first few maps were very one-sided. On their two map picks of Ascent and Icebox, Crazy Raccoon dominated, dropping only 8 rounds between those two.

The next few maps were JUPITER's picks, and they began, interestingly, to play Laz on Yoru. While the agent's impact perhaps wasn't quite what it could have been, he was certainly hitting his shots, top fragging for quite some time to lead JUP to a 7-2 lead on Bind. Here, though, Crazy Raccoon would begin their comeback. They outplayed JUP on their own attacking half. At the last second, with the score at 12-10, Reita helped pull it back for JUPITER. They'd win four straight rounds to keep their Iceland dreams alive for one more map.

Haven would be just as exciting. JUPITER grabbed an early lead, but it wouldn't stay that way for long, as Crazy Raccoon made another great mid-game comeback. Ultimately, CR clutched up and things went to OT. Through four intense rounds, it was an amazing 4k by zepher that sealed the deal. Crazy Raccoon will be Japan's representative in Iceland.

Final Standings for Stage 2 Challengers Finals Japan:

1. Crazy Raccoon - ¥1,000,000 + qualification to Masters Reykjavik 2. Absolute JUPITER - ¥500,000 3. REJECT - ¥200,000 4. FAV gaming - ¥100,000 5-6. SCARZ - ¥50,000 5-6. NORTHEPTION - ¥50,000 7-8. Lag Gaming - ¥50,000 7-8. FENNEL - ¥50,000