Team Indonesia takes down Peru to win Red Bull Campus Clutch 2023

While the official VALORANT Champions Tour is on a prolonged break, the off-season has managed to keep the community entertained in the meantime with several organizations hosting regional tournaments across Americas, Europe and also Asia. However, the lack of a global tournament was being felt up until recently with the Red Bull Campus Clutch 2023.

Featuring teams of university students from 34 countries selected from a pool of 4,000 students , Red Bull Campus Clutch was held in Istanbul, Turkey through November 21-24. The participating teams were divided into six groups of four teams and two groups of five teams. Following the group stages, only 16 teams qualified for the playoffs, held the day after, participating in BO3 matches, to earn a spot at the Grand Finals, which was a Best of 5 game.

After a series of rigorous battles in the Volkswagen Arena, it was team GARUDA, representing Indonesia, that emerged as the winners of Red Bull Campus Clutch 2023.

Path to Grand Finals

Despite being newcomers to the tournament and not having prior Red Bull Campus Clutch experience, the Indonesians announced their entry with a loud bang after taking down everyone in Group D, the group they were assigned to, and ending Group Stages with a 4-0 record. Their showing was particularly impressive as their Group consisted of Team USA, the defending Champions and arguably the favourites to win the event. While the win came after a prolonged 18-16 game, it was nonetheless a praiseworthy win for the Indonesians.

Ending Group Stages with a 4-0 record guaranteed Garuda a placement in the Playoffs, which they capitalized on from the get-go taking down Germany's BubatzBuben in a sweep (15-13 and 13-3), setting up a quarter-finals match with Team Snakes of Pakistan, who were also coming off a 2-0 win against Chile's Los Vigentes, 13-0 and 13-7.

While presenting themselves as more challenging than their German counterparts, Team Pakistan also ended up being no match for Garuda as they once again performed a sweep (13-8, 13-9) advancing to the Semi Finals and adding another stop to their exciting Cinderella story. As only 4 out of the 34 teams made their way to the concluding day of the event, the intensity in the atmosphere grew as more live viewers and audience tuned in to see which team would be crowned the winners of Red Bull Campus Clutch 2023.

The day began with a Semi Finals game between Garuda and NARODNI GARDA, the team from Czech Republic who had found themselves there after a win over the Irish team Ispíní Enjoyers. Even though on the first map of the Semi Finals, it seemed like Garuda were being cornered, the entire predicament was flipped following halftime courtesy of Garuda’s 9 round streak. This assertion of dominance was enough to dispirit the Czech team as the next map fell to Garuda as well and they progressed to the Grand Finals.

Grand Finals: Garuda vs Zen Esports

Zen Esports, the team from Peru, earned the Grand Finals spot through a similar run as Garuda and taking down the French team, Valiant PBL, in the Semi Finals. Garuda, having made their way so far in the tournament, were not planning on losing and they demonstrated their ferocity from Split, which while experienced a tie at halftime, favoured Garuda by a 13-7 margin at the end, demonstrating the influence Garuda possessed in turning maps around. Sunset bore an even worse fate for Zen Esports as Garuda had control over the map from the start and ended with a 13-5 final score.

This map served as a wake-up call for Zen Esports, as they retaliated with a much stronger presence on Haven replicating Garuda’s MO after a tied half. Haven, thus ended with a 13-8 final score, for Zen Esports. Throughout the event, Garuda had never lost a map and losing Haven unveiled a beast taking Zen by surprise on Ascent, the 4th and final map of the series. Garuda comfortably walked over the map ending the map with a 13-4 score and earning the Red Bull Campus Clutch 2023 crown.

Garuda’s Most dominant player: Kush

While the efforts of the entire team were crucial to elevating Garuda to the 1st place at the event, GRD Kush perhaps made the difference in most games. His consistency across the Semi Finals and Grand Finals, boasting 1.28 and 1.33 Rating respectively was extremely vital to Garuda’s success. He finished the event with 1.34 Rating on 268 ACS across 10 maps, while switching between Sova, Skye and Cipher.