Transcription
If I told you two years ago, or even a couple months ago, that EDG would end up winning Champs, you'd probably laugh in my face. Despite their consistent domination in VCT China, EDG have never placed higher than fifth at any International Event. I think the Chinese teams are still definitely the weakest teams out of all the regions; I think it's like, not even close.
EDG and China were already doubted by the entire world. However, when Champs rolled around, EDG seemed like a completely new, new team and ended up defying everyone's expectations, probably including their own, becoming the 2024 VCT Champions. So how did this even happen? It really did seem like EDG and Chinese Valorant would need years before they could finally lift the Champions Trophy. But in reality, they've been making small but important improvements to their gameplay every single year and every single tournament that have largely gone under the radar.
In this video, we're going to go over the entire evolution of EDG's gameplay since 2022 and bring to light all the ways that EDG and Chinese Valorant as a whole have been slowly but surely developing in these shadows. We're going to uncover exactly where EDG fell short in the past, why they were so behind the other regions, what changes they made to their play style over time, and finally, how years of losing ultimately molded EDG into a team capable of becoming the 2024 VCT champions.
To fully understand EDG's complete transformation as a team, we need to go back to 2022, when EDG's current core first came together and started dominating regional tournaments leading up to Champs that year. EDG tried out different roster combinations before landing on Kong, Kong, Chichu, Nobody, Howong, and Life to compete in the last chance qualifier for Champs. At the time, VCT China did not yet exist, and Valorant was not even officially released yet in China, so EDG had to play in a qualifier with other teams from East Asia like Crazy Raccoon and Northeption from Japan, or DAMWON Gaming from Korea. A fun fact from this time is that Jenni's Meteor was on Northeption, and TenZ and Laia were on DAMWON Gaming with Jenni's current coach, Solo. Even at this point, I think people were skeptical about how good China was compared to Korea, but EDG absolutely dominated this qualifier and didn't drop a single map.
But the real test was beginning once they met the major regions during Champs later that year. Their first big match on the world stage was against Paper Rex, and this marks the very beginning of a long rivalry between EDG and Paper Rex, who ended up meeting each other at almost every single International Event in the next two years. Let's take a closer look at this game to see exactly what type of team EDG was during the early stages of their team. Throughout all the qualifiers for Champs, EDG were playing with Life, but in their opening match against Paper Rex, they subbed in Smoggy instead. Being the first official match featuring the modern-day EDG core, this tournament was during the Chamber meta, so on most maps, Kong Kong was playing Chamber while Smoggy or Life were playing main duelist.
In 2022, EDG were already showcasing fighting fundamentals way ahead of their time when put in the right positions. This is an amazing sign for any team because it means you have a great bit to work off of. They actually, for real, forsaking getting pushed away by the drone stuff, early aggression. How do you come up with two, and he wants a bit more fight, still being taken, but that's not destroyed; you have to expect that somebody's push when that goes down, kills are being found though, and yep, there you go. However, EDG's tactics were still underdeveloped at the time, and they often tried too hard to force these fights early in their defensive rounds, over control that was not really necessary to have. Here's a round where they're playing an anti-eco on Pearl and decides to commit to fighting for B link, which is probably the worst spot on the map to fight against.
Classic EDG in their early stages seem to have a bit of a superficial way at looking at defense, which mainly involved guessing where attackers might go. Off the rib to start, didn't catch Nobody, fl over the top, Nobody's not supported with it though, it just about fades away; still, Smoggy wants to take the fight. In fact, they're being backed up. Instead of playing around theories of map control, it was more about how they could set up big fights. Just used his knives to chase down the last player in an ace. But if these initial plans fell through, their mid-to-late round decision-making always looked really shaky. In this round on Haven, they gamble to fight mid with four players while Kong Kong looks for a safe pick towards A main. Paper Rex don't end up running into the stack, but EDG are able to take full control of grass and window with a lot of info towards A main. This is an amazing position to retake or contain Paper Rex towards A, but EDG looked very uncomfortable and confused on how to proceed. They get really hasty on the flank even though no one is planning to fight for the site and get caught by a solo lurker. Kong Kong also takes a solo repeek onto site before anyone else has a chance to help him or play off his peek. Even though EDG gained a tactical advantage with their intent to fight mid, they didn't have a deep enough understanding of how to win a round like this without an early team fight, which is exactly why they were so desperate to force one by rushing up the flank.
You could also tell that EDG just felt different playing with Smoggy instead of Life, who seemed to have better chemistry when entering and overall found more impact in EDG's system. When they went back to playing with Life in their next match against Team Liquid, he struggled to find the same impact that Smoggy did, and Life's play style just seemed less consistent in EDG's system. EDG's attack sides at the time looked strong when they were able to lean into simple momentum-based executes or early round fights. Challenged here unless they can get Jing in a position to T frequently and use his dismiss, he's getting no value from the reer, the same opening setup time and time again, and look at it, the a shock second round in a row, Forsaken tries to evacuate but Dash, they just catching him again. However, when the rounds slowed down, EDG looked really uncomfortable making decisions in the mid-round. You could tell that their defaults on attack were underdeveloped because they relied a lot on solo duels to find openings and didn't have smooth transitions into executes. They would mainly lurk around and see what happened, which is basically the type of defaults people are doing in ranked. It was clear that EDG had potential at this point, but they were definitely lacking the complexity and depth in their gameplay which is needed to compete with the best teams. Their Champs run ended almost as soon as it started.
Despite an immediate tournament exit, EDG still took a huge step forward by learning that Smoggy was a better fit for the team over Life and committed to him being a part of the main roster going into 2023. Now, 2023 was the first year of VCT franchising, but China was not yet included in the tier one leagues. However, EDG was clearly one of China's best teams and were still invited to the kickoff event, LOCK//IN Sao Paulo. EDG drew a first-round match against 100 Thieves, who had just signed cryo. Since it hadn't been that long since Champs in 2022, EDG was generally the same team, but this encounter with 100 Thieves exposed their play style in a way, way that they had never experienced before. I mentioned earlier that EDG looked strong when they were able to run straightforward executes or find those early round fights, and it was more their mid-round that was the problem. Icebox is a map where EDG would thrive because five-man plays through A main or B main were and are still quite common. By running straightforward movements through A main or B main, EDG could create team-fighting situations that they felt really comfortable in. We saw this work pretty well against Paper Rex during their Icebox last year, but this same plan didn't quite work against 100 Thieves at LOCK//IN. 100 Thieves showed EDG a completely different side of Valorant that they never even knew existed. They had comprehensive set retakes planned for this match, and EDG were often given initial control of the sites. 100 Thieves would throw enough utility to prevent EDG from taking aggressive timings and would always get a bit of free damage on the planter. Then they would play out a full retake with all their saved utility. EDG was just not used to playing out complicated post-plant or retake situations, so they always backed off to play the bomb and gave up too much control of sites. They were completely unprepared to deal with the amount of utility that 100 Thieves had ready for the retake and ended up losing seven rounds to 100 Thieves by retake.
In this round I'm showing you, 100 Thieves are playing a full retake on A, while EDG send five players through A main. Killjoy utility is set up to stall and get free damage on the planter, which works well because it also buys time for the flank and rotators to prepare for the retake. EDG completely back off of site, preparing to play the bomb tap and forfeit control of site. Now it's 100 Thieves' turn to run the retake, and they start with Sage walling off the bomb. Simultaneously, Omen smokes off the turret in attacker spawn, which forces EDG to deal with the flank themselves, but Omen still has utility for the bomb. And while the bomb is being pressured, 100 Thieves use paranoia to commence a push from both sides of A main. EDG are completely overwhelmed by the retake utility and lose the round where they were essentially given a free bomb plant. This was a play style that EDG did not have great exposure to in Asia and especially the Chinese region. They didn't have the experience to deal with this level of a set retake, and 100 Thieves taught them an incredibly valuable lesson on Icebox, which up until this point was by far their most dominant map.
LOCK//IN also marked the beginning of a new era, as it was the first major tournament since Chamber was nerfed and phased out of the meta. Every team was forced to experiment with completely new roles and systems, and although there were certain players and teams that were more affected by the Chamber changes, like yay on C9 for example, almost every single team experienced role issues as a result, and EDG were no exception. Kong Kong used to be their dedicated Chamber player, but they moved him back to main duelist, which meant that Smoggy had to find a new role in the team. During this series against 100 Thieves, Smoggy played three different Agents from three different roles. This marked the beginning of long-lasting role problems within EDG because, although Smoggy proved to be a decent flex player, it would take a lot of time before EDG could find the perfect role configuration that maximized the value of every single player on the roster, which we'll get back to later on in the video. LOCK//IN was a great learning experience for EDG, who spent the next year working on improving and adding depth to their gameplay.
When Masters Tokyo came around later that year, EDG had made significant improvements to their mid- and late-round gameplay, which looked much more well-rounded. You could tell that they worked on adding more dimensions to their post-plants after their experience with 100 Thieves on Icebox. Instead of immediately falling back to play the bomb, they would have several layers of defense to prevent defenders from getting too much control. This was very evident in their match against NAVI, who at the time were one of the strongest teams in the world at retakes. Watch how EDG are no longer giving up full control of site once the bomb is planted. They're now playing an initial layer of defense to challenge NAVI's entry onto site and then constantly threatening the repeaks as NAVI are trying to come out. This prevented NAVI from gaining too much control of site early on in the post-plant. Low on HP gets a bit of information that might tell him that Howong is in back hall though, and he's not, he's tucked over a generator. What, well, okay, just spamming onto that corner, still weak enough, Howong takes the fight. But once EDG gain enough of an advantage, they know that they still have the option to play the bomb. In this 2v2 post-plant, EDG are still challenging timings on the initial entry. Once they get that first kill, both players fall back to long to play the bomb together, which basically makes it impossible for Shia to win this round. Here's another round where NAVI have the A site for retake. This would have been a huge problem if EDG had fallen back to long, but they maintained back hall control the entire round. Watch this beautiful team play as Chichu takes an uncommitted first peek, then waits for Smoggy to challenge the bomb diffuser before peeking again. If you're playing this way, there will always be rounds that you throw away, especially as you're learning to manage the risk of those initial peaks, but the perfect post-plants will always have multiple layers to them, and learning which situations call for the different types of layers is just all a part of the learning process.
I also mentioned earlier that EDG's attack-side defaults were underdeveloped and relied a lot on winning solo duels rather than systematic movements around the map. Well, by Masters Tokyo, EDG had made big improvements to their defaults and mid-round, which indirectly helped their post-plants because it meant that they were in stronger map positions prior to planting the bomb. In this pistol round on Lotus against LOUD, EDG starts by taking B main control. Once they have that, they leave Omen there to maintain it and then back out to reclear. Jet stays towards A to maintain info, but Viper sees him while jump spotting and decides to fall back to site to avoid dying to a reclear. Now that EDG have Mound control, they can threaten a C execute and do that by throwing utility into back site, which gets a lot of damage onto Aspaz and pulls three players in total towards C. This creates a huge weakness towards B, and EDG immediately spring into action and pivot into a B execute. LOUD are now extremely out of position to not only defend the site but to disrupt the plant, which gives EDG a lot of space to actually set up their post-plant. Instead of just lurking around the map and relying on opening duels, EDG are actually trying to take map control and then trying to use that control to transition into an execute. Although nothing was perfect at this point, EDG were making great progress in diversifying their gameplay, and this tournament would become their best International placement yet. They met Paper Rex again in the losers bracket, and this is where a new realization started to hit, hit them. EDG were still very good at taking initial early round fights and would win that challenge against most teams at the time, so if there was ever an opportunity, they take that willingly. But during this era, Paper Rex was known to be the most aggressive team in the world and thrived in those exact situations. It wasn't always the right play for EDG to take those same early fights against Paper Rex. With Paper Rex, there was always a constant threat of an aggressive push, a trap, or a fast flank every single round. And although EDG had improved their understanding of slow play and map control, they were not yet good enough to be able to counter Paper Rex. Their attempts at slow play just caused their lurkers to get constantly punished by Paper Rex's aggression, but EDG's grouped pushes, which were previously also effective, did not work nearly as well against Paper Rex's style. EDG had certainly improved on their weaknesses, but they were still far from a complete team.
Leading up to Champs 2023, EDG once again dominated the region during the qualifiers, and now is a good time to talk about relative regional strength and how this has a big impact on International success. Since you're playing against your own region for most of the year, if the teams there aren't that strong, you're not going to get the high-quality practice needed to become one of the best teams in the world. As we've documented, EDG had done very well up until this point by learning from every single International opportunity they had, but it's always going to be hard to tell if what you're practicing is working or not if your region is not good enough to test you. However, Champs in 2023 was a bit of a turning point for Chinese Valorant as a whole. This tournament was the first time that a team from China that wasn't EDG actually made it past the group stage and into the knockouts. Bilibili Gaming's accomplishments were overshadowed by the entire Valorant community saying that NRG choked, and even though that's true, Bilibili Gaming still had to play at an acceptable enough level to be able to beat them. Even though Bilibili lost immediately during the knockouts, they still put up a decent match against both DRX and EDG, which implied that Chinese Valorant was trending upward as a whole. This could only mean good things for EDG because they would start to get higher-quality practice during the regular season. EDG still didn't have much time to make major changes to their gameplay by Champs, so they were still only able to achieve similar results to what they achieved at Masters Tokyo. They met Paper Rex again during the group stage and met a similar fate as last time, unable to fully solve their aggressive play style.
One thing that EDG did show throughout 2023 was that Kong Kong could be one of the best players in the world and the superstar player that EDG needed to succeed, which is what every Champ-winning team always has. He came into his own this year and gained a reputation for making insane plays, but these plays weren't just flashy plays; they were often very important for his team to succeed. When I looked at the raw impact of kills for all players from 2023, Kong Kong had one of the highest ratings for raw impact, which was calculated by weighing how important each individual kill was towards actually winning the round. This just shows that Kong Kong and EDG already had real potential and many of the pieces necessary to win as long as they were able to bring their team play and tactics to a higher level. A big reason for why Kong Kong was able to succeed was that EDG were giving him all the best spots and putting him on Agents which enabled him to play the way he wanted. However, this started to become a limitation for EDG's team comps and skill ceiling as a whole since Kong Kong would always be put on the highest impact Agents and was even put on Chamber or Raze in certain situations to carry. It meant that someone else would have to fill the gaps to ensure that EDG's team comps were still viable. Smoggy had to play this awkward flex role where he had to play multiple Agents across completely different roles just to make the team systems work. Even though Smoggy did do a great job, as he often put up huge numbers on whoever he played, we know that he provides a lot of value as a space creator from EDG's early days, and that's just not something that can be easily achieved when he's playing certain Agents like Killjoy or Breach. This is why EDG just went with double-duelist comps on certain maps so they could fully utilize Smoggy's strengths as an entry. However, this forced EDG's team comps away from this utility-based meta, which meant that they were going to have fewer options, and their play style and ceiling as a team is going to be limited. They had to rely on fighting to win rounds and would end up losing the tactical game because they obviously have less utility to work with. Here's a round that EDG played against Bilibili, which starts with an A execute. A lot of early utility is traded back and forth throughout the execute, and EDG uses a lot to get through the cypher setup. This round culminates in a 2v2 retake, but take note how Bilibili still have a big utility advantage here with Omen still having paranoia and Viper having two mollies. The first molly is sent into elbow, which forces Sky towards site, and the second molly is thrown at site paired with a paranoia. This allows Bilibili to take front-sight control and pull off a successful retake. Begins how against Ren Ren, waiting, looking desperate, left, right, and now the F gone. I'm sure you can all easily think of another high-profile team who fell victim to this exact pattern. Paper Rex had this exact problem for years, as their individual players worked much better with double-duelist, but this inevitably limited their ceiling as a team, and they could never win a championship in this form. This was apparent throughout their Champs Grand Final against EG, where their double-duelist comps would get outplayed by EG's tactical utility. Even EG, who were the eventual Champions 2023 winners, had two very talented duelists in Demon1 and Joo but resigned to putting one of the two on controller on different maps just to make room for better utility.
2023 was another year of small steps forward for EDG and Chinese Valorant as a whole, but Valorant is only becoming more and more tactical as the game evolves, so EDG knew that they hit a skill ceiling with their comps and would have to resolve this issue if they wanted to win anything at all. To attempt to, to fix this going into 2024, EDG stopped playing double-duelist and committed to more meta comps by keeping Smoggy on initiators like KAY/O or Breach. EDG were fully buying into new play styles and running better comps, which gave them more options as a team. This helped them run superior executes and strategies that they weren't able to in the past. It also positively impacted their mid-round calling because now they had better tools to take and defend that map control. They also have way more to work with during those late-round scenarios like retakes. These were all great improvements for EDG's development as a team. However, there was a big tradeoff that EDG wasn't completely aware of until later on in the year. Smoggy had always looked so comfortable taking initial fights and helping EDG create space, but initiators are just way more locked into playing certain positions on the map so they can hit their utility lineups rather than being in the best spots to be taking those initial fights. This is why a lot of initiator players need to be really good in the clutch because they're not going to be able to contribute to opening fights and will only have late-round fights to take. What this all meant is that EDG would be weaker on those initial fights without Smoggy's direct fragging impact. This was never a problem for EDG regionally as they continued to dominate China, which was now its own official tier-one franchised league, but once they went to Masters Madrid, they realized that without Smoggy's presence in those fights, they weren't even making it to mid-round or late-round scenarios where the extra utility starts to become worth it. This weakness was completely exposed by a team like Gen.G, whose entire play style is riding on dominating the round prior to post-plants or retakes. You can see that Smoggy often ended up split off from the main group since he had to position for his Breach utility. This is quite opposite from the positions that we used to see Smoggy dominate in, and it's easy to imag, imag that EDG would have found much more success if Smoggy were fighting alongside Kong Kong during these initial skirmishes rather than being the support player. Go oh my God.
EDG did not make it past groups in Madrid, but just like every single loss they suffered in the past, they never stayed complacent and always tried to make incremental improvements to their team. When VCT Stage 1 began, Smoggy was immediately taken off initiators, and EDG started to try to put him on controllers like Omen or Brimstone, which still enabled him to help contribute to initial fights. We've seen a ton of other players in this exact same position, like TenZ for example, who also transitioned successfully into this playmaking controller role. Don't forget that Joo and Demon1 on EG also swap between duelist and controller for this exact reason as well. You might not get as many opening opportunities as your main duelist, but you'll still have more freedom than initiators to make plays for space. This was a positive change overall, but EDG completely fell flat at Masters Shanghai, so what gives? This change unfortunately meant that Howong was displaced from his prior role as EDG's controller player. Howong's individual performance was never that important to EDG's success, but his unfamiliarity with his new roles caused his performance to fall below a point that was acceptable. Here's a round I noticed during their elimination match against Paper Rex where Howong...
is filling in as the gecko player. EDG are running a split through A and have gained decent control of shower side. Hadong flashes out from short to push through, but he fumbles his wingman and sends him to run at truck instead of planting the bomb. This single mistake completely ruins this round, as he now has to plant the bomb himself. Jing pushes out of U-Haul and gets two kills, which gives him his razal to kill Howong right after he completes the plant. EDG just needed one, one extra player to confirm the trade on Jing and prevent this entire situation from happening, but Howong messed up his util.
Howong was never an initiator player to begin with, so his utility usage also wasn't good enough to justify not having enough frags, but he was always EDG's IGL, and his tactical knowledge was hard to replace. So EDG made one last major adjustment to their team after Shanghai that would be the final piece to their puzzle. During Stage Two, EDG introduced an up-and-coming player to the roster who we're all familiar with today: Simon. He was an incredibly talented initiator specialist, unlike Howong, who had not only some of the best utility timings in the world but could also pull off big plays with his mechanical skill. Instead of dropping Howong completely, they continued to utilize his game knowledge as a coach who could still help make important tactical decisions during timeouts.
EDG probably didn't even know it themselves, but they finally had everything they needed to compete, compete for a VCT championship. And above all, no one knew what was coming going into Champions 2024. Nobody thought EDG were a threat. There were some early signs which showed that EDG and VCT China as a whole weren't as weak as people thought. FBX was considered to be one of the stronger teams at Shanghai because they had such close matches against both Team Heretics and Gen.G, who were finalists at the event. Trace Esports, who were China's third seed, even managed to finish first in their group above Leviatán and Team Vitality at Champs. It's only natural that China's dominating first seed would eventually find their footing. It's just fate that EDG drew Paper Rex again during the Champs 2024 group stage to decide who would move forward and who would be eliminated. This was EDG's first major test, but during this recent match at Champs, EDG's progress over all those years started to become really apparent.
EDG used to only thrive in the chaos and relied on big initial fights to win rounds. They would willingly take a lot of these early-round fights against Paper Rex, but this is exactly what Paper Rex specialized in at the time. EDG were not good enough at slow play to punish Paper Rex's hyper-aggressive play style, but now we're seeing them effectively play the information game to counter Paper Rex's stack pushes, which is what they could never do in the past. In this pistol round on Sunset, EDG starts with double initiator utility towards A main, and Kong makes noise to threaten a rush. The point of his movement here is to try to bait out a trap in A main. This immediately tells them that Paper Rex are not looking to fight for A main. Simultaneously, Chichu uses his Cipher cam mid, which immediately gets shot down, and this prompts EDG to work up while Paper Rex are pushing down mid. This turns into a tactical victory that was created with good utility usage and game knowledge rather than relying on taking a big fight or winning any individual duels.
Here's another round from the same game where EDG crept themselves into B main using the KO knife and information from Smoggy. Smoggy lurks towards A; Smoggy waits to peak while his team earns free control of B main, and this off-timing gives him a good opportunity to win a duel against the wall boost peak when Sage leaves mid to get the revive off towards A. This prompts EDG to rip their execute onto B; they trade through the weaker site successfully and are able to get into a post-plant position. EDG have surpassed their former selves and are now able to win rounds based on slow, information-based play. They're also doing it with these comps, which feature higher-quality utility, while Paper Rex are still playing double duelist comps on certain maps and still reliant on taking big fights to win rounds. This match really showed how far EDG have come since the first time they played Paper Rex, but without this rivalry, EDG would have never become the team they are today. There were even rumors that Paper Rex continued to scrim with EDG to help them practice for their final matches when most other teams had already gone on break, so kudos to them.
Another really important test for EDG was LOUD, who they played during the winners' finals. Tactically speaking, the Americas region has always had the most well-rounded teams who can pull off any style and any type of play, so this was an important test to see if EDG could not only swap styles as needed but adapt correctly throughout the course of a game. And we saw EDG do this spectacularly over multiple rounds on Ascent. LOUD threatened deep control at the start of rounds, and EDG responded properly by staying patient and reclearing them as a team once LOUD's utility expired. LOUD also attempted stacked trap plays, which EDG were well prepared for, like this one in A main where Kong is set up to play anti- while Simon baits the trap by tapping the orb. When LOUD moved into more passive setups, EDG ran successful defaults across the map to threaten enough control and transition into executes. EDG starts in a 2-1-2 to clear B main and maintain control of A main and mid late into the round. They decide to move back towards A but drop this smoke in mid, which denies just enough info to pull Shao towards it to help on this timing. They're ready to hit A and catch Aspas on Jett holding A main by himself. This match showed that EDG not only had all the tools needed but can make the right calls at the right time and swap between them. EDG finally proved Boo wrong and defeated his role model, Aspas, in the process. But there was still one more team and one more region that EDG had not yet proved themselves against.
Champions 2024 culminated in an incredible Grand Final between EDG and Team Heretics, which went the whole five games. And during this match, we were able to see the results of every single moment from EDG's long and arduous journey over the last three years. EDG had silently struggled tournament after tournament, making hard but important decisions to improve themselves. They worked tirelessly on their mid-round and late-round decision-making, which now resulted in them being able to win full retake situations using their tactical advantages rather than just relying on early kills. It's all stacked against them. Avenues accounted for positions, watched, but lucky to draw their util out in hand, spamming, pring away down to the one-v-one. Simon, that's going to do it. All the to and a short land their post plants became multifaceted, featuring multiple layers of bomb site defense and playmaking instead of just falling back to play the bomb every single round. Five alive versus five, trying to play this retake now planted for Mountain, but playing on site. Yeah, controversial EDG, we'll see if it pays off. Out going to try and hold this one back, overdrive it's already unleashed. SMY tucks himself up onto the high ground, perched away. Damage has definitely been done, and a weakened Boo can do nothing but scurry. We saw their defaults become more and more complex, and they now knew how to challenge map control and utility, but could smoothly transition into executes without depending on winning individual duels. As you said, knife back now. EDG set their sights over towards the B site, making a move now over towards it. Back site is granted, and gain Simon with the plant up and bound. There rebounds. They could also now play comps which maximized utility and actually had enough utility to support them throughout every phase of a round, and at the same time, every single player on EDG was playing a role that they excelled at, which enabled them to make round-winning and sometimes even game-defining plays. Jon not there to deny.
EDG really demonstrated the right way to build and grow a team from the ground up. They continue to refine their strengths in early-round fighting but kept working on their weaknesses instead of ignoring them. Early-round fights were still an important tool for them, but it wasn't something that they relied on anymore. We never saw them try to rebuild into a super team, and they never made any drastic changes to the roster. They trusted the process, kept working hard, and made small but very important improvements every single event. They are the embodiment of hard work paying off, and they completely deserved to become the 2024 VCT Champions. No kill to be found; it's one man. What can he—