Kansas City Pioneers beat Knights to win VALORANT Elite Showdown

Kansas City Pioneers edged out Pittsburgh Knights in a nailbiter grand final to clinch the Community Gaming VALORANT Elite Showdown - Main Event title.

Both teams had come into the match with five match win streaks after two grueling brackets, with Knights beating the likes of Version1 and Evil Geniuses and Pioneers getting the better of NRG Esports and Built By Gamers. It was clear that both teams were closely matched and the tie was set to go all the way.

Pioneers kicked off Haven in dominant fashion on their defensive half, with newly acquired in-game leader Noah "jcStani" Smith leading from the front and reading the opposition time and time again to take a 10-2 lead. The attacking half was but a formality and the Kansas City based organization swiftly won three consecutive rounds to close out the map 13-2.

Knights woke up early in Bind, picking up a comfortable four round streak before it was snatched away by Pioneers, who edged the half 7-5. Knights then flipped the script and took control on the attack, frutta putting up an impressive 252 ACS against his former team to claim Bind 13-10.

The best of the match was left for the end, as the last map took us to Ascent. Both teams had spells in the first half and it ended at a rather close 7-5 in favor of the Knights. The tempo changed in the second half, with both teams trading rounds and winning force buys to take it to overtime. The squads could not be separated in the tiebreaker either, with the Pioneers constantly picking up first rounds thanks to Brady "thief" Dever’s heroics only to lose out the next to a Ashton "Frosty" Rakoske clutch. The back and forth finally ended in round 34, where Pioneers poetically fended off skuba’s retake to round out the map 18-16.

The Pioneers’ first competitive VALORANT trophy is made all the more sweeter knowing that the roster has recently gone through turbulent times. They will undoubtedly find confidence in the fact that the current unconfirmed roster changes have made an instant impact and it will be really interesting to see if they will confirm the players on trials and how they perform going into the next VCT season.