Esports Week Four - A Team Calls A Bluff
We tried everything we could to reschedule A Team's fixture. Ihor was unavailable Wednesday evening. Could we play Wednesday afternoon? Thursday, any time at all? Friday?
|
Conspiracy theory time: the opposition took one look at how good Ihor is (have I mentioned he's in the top 0.1% in the world? That’s 0.1%. Almost 16 million people play Valorant regularly. Take 1,000 of them at random and line them up—Ihor's at the front) and decided to play hardball. Their response: We can't reschedule. Put a team together or forfeit. Okay. Isaac, hero of last year and standout for B Team so far this year, stepped in. We had technology issues in Gates as well. Computers dropped like flies as we tried to update software. Screens were being moved around at light speed. I needed to be sure every player had Valorant working and ready; it was touch and go for a minute. Every time it seemed someone was sorted, another issue arose. I’ve never felt tension like it. But we made it. |
 |
Into the game.
God, it was close. Neither team ever pulled ahead by more than one round until right at the end. 6-5. 6-6. 7-6. 7-7. 8-7. It was nail-biting. Mr. Sharma-Pay was present, and I told him he wasn’t allowed to leave. I needed someone to mutter my thoughts to so I didn’t seem like a lunatic.
Their team threw everything they had at us—adapting, changing, tweaking. In last year's campaign, they finished 10th in the country. 10th best. In. The. Country. Every single member of our team had to stay at the absolute top of their game at every moment because our opposition tried everything in the book to exploit the fact that we were without our ever-present, fearless leader.
It just didn’t work, though.
We walked into the game with a depleted squad, depleted technology, and a group of players who hadn’t been able to properly practice beforehand. And when the absolute best our opposition could muster was thrown full force at our brilliant team, it wasn’t enough.
Result: 13-10 victory. Q-Esports are currently 6th in the table.
Cohesion Developing Nicely in B Team
That A Team game was pretty tense, wasn’t it? I like writing the tense ones. The close calls. The good-lord-that-was-close ones. Then you have games like the one B Team played. It was a walkover.
A standout moment for me was the team’s communication and tactical development. James knows exactly when to take charge and make big calls—and when to listen to others. Selim’s tactics are beginning to unify the team as a cohesive unit. Joshua quietly takes control of entire rounds, making the game a doddle for the rest of the team. Chris is adapting his outstanding VR skills to Valorant. And Captain Carrie? She always keeps everybody on task.
It’s a testament to the team’s professionalism that when they were 10-0 up and the opposition won back a couple of rounds, they were furious. They analysed the situation and figured out how to prevent it from happening again.
Carrie maintains an incredible statistic: in every game she’s captained, the team has never lost. She keeps promising me that she isn’t messaging the other captains with the phrase, “Talk to me when you’ve got a 100% record, pal,” but I don’t believe her.
Result: 13-4 victory. A very, very good couple of weeks for Q-Esports.
We’re always excited to welcome new players to our Q-Esports team! If you’re interested in joining, come meet us at our next Open Day or book a private tour of the QE Faculty. Fill out the contact form to learn more.
