Team Launch crowned champions of Oceanic Valorant Open

The opening Oceanic Valorant Ignition Series, hosted by Australian esports organisation ORDER, has come to a close with Team Launch claiming a strong 2-0 victory (13-5, 13-5) in Sunday’s grand final over early rivals EXO Clan.

Four weeks of action saw 373 registered teams compete for the $10,000 AUD prize pool and, most importantly, the coveted title of Oceania’s first Valorant champions. In the end, it was Team Launch, consisting of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive heavyweights Tyler ‘tucks’ Reilly, Matthew ‘Texta’ O’Rourke, Ollie ‘DickStacy’ Tierney, Travis ‘wizard’ Richardson and Fergus ‘ferg’ Stephenson, who went on to take out the event without a single map loss through the open qualifier, group stage or playoffs.

A definitive success, ORDER’s Valorant Open saw well over 200,000 unique viewers tune in across both the main ORDER Twitch channel and personal community caster channels during the group stage and finals. Concurrent viewership for the finals was steady and kept up with viewership levels for other major esports like CS:GO and League of Legends – a healthy early sign for Valorant in the region.

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Outside of Team Launch’s overtime win against Seal Team 6 in the final 16 opener, neither finalist was troubled on their way to an assured semi-final spot after winning their respective groups. Unnamed, Control, Pants Down and Dire Wolves rounded out the final six, each through to the quarter-finals.

Unnamed survived a brave effort from Pants Down to meet Team Launch in the semis, and despite Dire Wolves’ best efforts to tie up the series with an overtime win in map two, Control hung on 2-1 to book their semi-final date against EXO Clan.

However, controversy surrounded the eventual runner-ups ahead of the semi after EXO’s Ethan ‘Crunchy’ Laker was hardware-banned by Valorant developer Riot Games for supposed use of third-party mouse acceleration software. A manual review of the banned accounts found the ban was a false positive, and a rescheduled semi-final saw EXO Clan emerge 2-1 over Control to book their spot at the grand final.

There was no stopping Team Launch though – the eventual champs overcame Unnamed 2-0 with ease in their semi-final, before ending EXO Clan’s chances of a fairytale ending with a brutal 2-0 (13-5, 13-5) to claim the trophy.

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ORDER’s OCE Valorant Open is the first regional event for the Australasian region in the esport, with Riot partnering with numerous organisations to bring the Ignition Series to life across the globe. In all, it’s a very successful launch of Valorant as an esport title heading into the second half of 2020. While it’s highly unlikely the region will see offline finals in the short-term, the groundwork is well and truly in place for Valorant to begin capitalising on the ever-growing always-thriving OCE esports scene.

ORDER Valorant Ignition Series Oceania - Playoff Results

1st. Team Launch - $5,000 AUD

2nd. EXO Clan - $3,000 AUD

3rd-4th. Control, Unnamed - $1,000 AUD

5th-6th. Dire Wolves, Pants Down

Stay in touch with Here’s The Thing and keep up with Oceanic esports news, results, commentary and more.

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Credits:

• Written by Nicholas Taifalos
• Edited by Adam Taylor

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