Envy and FaZe victorious on first day of NA Masters
It was ENVY and FaZe Clan who kicked off the first day of Masters action in North America with victories, over Gen.G Esports and XSET respectively. The two will face off on Sunday in the second round of the upper bracket, while Gen.G and XSET will play each other in the loser's bracket on Saturday.
Envy and Gen.G played in the first match of the day, and the only one to go to three maps. Haven saw the teams roll out with very similar compositions, each fielding a Phoenix, Sova, Omen, and Cypher, the sole difference being Jake "kaboose" McDonald's Raze vs. Danny "HUYNH" Huynh's Jett. While Gen.G took the pistol, it didn't take long for Envy to get rolling as well.
The first half ended 6-6, and we rolled on to the second, where Victor "Victor" Wong would show up even bigger than he had before. He'd die twice all half as Envy finished it out with a clean 7 rounds straight to take the first map.
Icebox was next up, and in a very interesting decision, Envy headed into it without a Sage. This was a strategy pros had been quite critical of when TSM had run it in Challengers 3, and it went that way again as Gen.G cleanly took the map 13-5. Every single player contributed evenly for them, while Envy's inability to attack sites without the Sage was clearly seen as Gen.G took 10 straight defensive rounds after losing the pistol and follow-up.
Bind was the final map, and again the difference in compositions was a Sage on Gen.G's side while food opted for Phoenix. The duelists showed their worth this time, though, and huynh had something of an underperformance as Anthony "mummAy" DiPaolo showed up big with his Omen Operator play.
This map was certainly close, with both teams reaching double digits in rounds, but ultimately Envy would edge past their opponents thanks to a strong attacking side. The series went 2-1 their way.
FaZe and XSET, on the other hand, wasn't nearly as close. Compositions for Haven were similar again, the difference this time being Zachary "ZachaREEE" Lombardo on Breach and Zander "thwifo" Kim taking the more standard Cypher. Andrej "babybay" Francisty has been the talk of VALORANT lately with his incredible performances, and he displayed exactly why on this map, putting up a monstrous 415 ACS. FaZe snuck out of their defensive half with a 7-5 lead, but then dominated on their attack, only letting XSET grab a single round.
Bind would be an even wider margin. FaZe dominated XSET on both sides, with babybay again pulling off some great plays but Corey "corey" Nigra actually leading the way in terms of stats.
XSET looked rather overwhelmed by FaZe, who have added a new, tactical side to their game lately, and FaZe moved on confidently to their upper bracket date with Envy.
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