VALORANT Champions 2021: European Domination and Acend’s Victory
The VALORANT Champions tournament, the largest international event for Riot Games’ first-person shooter, took place in Berlin, Germany from December 1 to 12.
The inaugural VALORANT world championship showcased a total of 16 teams, including four from Europe, three from North America, three from Brazil, three from Southeast Asia, one from Korea, one from Japan, and one from South America. Notably, the European teams stood out as the strongest contenders.
Teams Liquid, Acend, Gambit, and Fnatic — all hailing from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) — made their way to the playoffs. With the exception of Fnatic, all of these teams reached the semifinals. Cloud9 Blue, the lone North American representative, made an appearance in the quarterfinals but were swiftly defeated by Team Liquid.
In a surprising turn of events, KRÜ Esports, a team from Chile in South America, managed to eliminate Sentinels in the group stage and Fnatic in the quarterfinals, earning themselves a spot in the semifinals. However, they were ultimately defeated by Gambit.
Despite being considered a formidable team, Liquid faced a crushing defeat at the hands of Acend in the semifinals. Mehmet Yağız “cNed” İpek and his team dominated the match, allowing Liquid to win only 11 rounds across the two maps played.
A Triumph for Acend in VALORANT Champions 2021
Acend emerged as the champions of VALORANT Champions 2021 after an intense best-of-five grand finals showdown against Gambit on Sunday, December 12. Although they lost the first and third maps of the series, Acend made a comeback to secure the championship.
CNed, Santeri “BONECOLD” Sassi, Vladyslav “Kiles” Shvets, Patryk “starxo” Kopczyński, and Aleksander “zeek” Zygmunt fought tenaciously on Icebox, the fourth map of the series, winning it 14-12 and extending the grand finals to a fifth map.
Seizing the momentum, Acend maintained control over Gambit on Split and secured a 13-8 victory, thus claiming the VALORANT Champions 2021 title and the $350,000 prize pool.
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Related keywords: VALORANT Champions, Riot Games, esports tournament, Acend, Gambit, European dominance, grand finals.