Stage 2 Regional battles are coming to an end. North America, one of VALORANT’s biggest stages, found its champion after the final. XSET defeated OpTic Gaming 3-1 to become the VCT 2022 Stage 2 North America champion and qualify for Stage 2 Masters as first seed. Let’s take a look at the summary of Stage 2 for esports betting followers.
VCT 2022 North America Stage 2 Group Stage
The group stage in this Stage was quite different from the others for VALORANT betting fans. First of all, TSM and FaZe Clan managed to qualify for the main stage of a tournament after a long time, which had a direct positive impact on the viewership. On the other hand, 100 Thieves competed in the group stage with a brand new roster and coaching staff, which was something the audience was eagerly anticipating.
These were not the only interesting highlights of this stage. The Guard, the champions of Stage 1, couldn’t recover from their poor performance at Stage 1 Masters. The team couldn’t stop this bad run and missed the playoffs and Stage 2 Masters by getting only 1 win. Sentinels’ story is a completely different tragedy.
The organization, which dominated the early days of VALORANT, could not adapt to the changes. With disappointing results both regionally and internationally, the team still hasn’t recovered. They have played disastrously poorly in this phase as well, failing to secure any wins.
The third place of Stage 1, Cloud9, who narrowly missed the top two, also fell victim to their poor performance. With only two wins in the group, the squad is out of the playoff race in Group B. Not all teams had a bad story, of course. OpTic Gaming and XSET managed to finish as the leaders of their groups with four wins each.
Playoffs
A total of eight teams are left in the playoffs: XSET, OpTic Gaming, FaZe Clan, NRG Esports, Evil Geniuses, 100 Thieves, Ghost Gaming and Luminosity.
Due to the high number of teams participating in the qualifying stage, some teams started their journey in the lower-bracket. After the battles played out, XSET and OpTic Gaming managed to throw themselves into the Upper-Final. In the Lower-Bracket, there was a great battle. Nearly every series extended to the third map, but in the end, NRG Esports and FaZe Clan made it to the Lower-Round 3.
From here on, every match was a do-or-die affair. First, OpTic Gaming defeated XSET 3-1 to reach the Grand Final and become the first team to advance to Stage 2 Masters. XSET then faced FaZe Clan in the lower-final. XSET won the series 3-1 and earned the second Masters ticket, and then went on to face OpTic for revenge.
XSET managed to get their revenge here. XSET won the best-of-five series 3-1 and became the first seed of North America. One of the star players of the team, zekken made a great contribution by getting 89 kills in total.
VCT 2022 Stage 2 Masters Copenhagen will start on July 10 and last until July 24.
