"We've changed the NA Valorant scene for the better": The Guard's coach mCe at VCT NA LCQ

The VCT 2022 North America Last Chance Qualifiers (LCQ) kicked off on August 4, 2022. Eight of NA's top Valorant organizations are competing for a final chance to represent their region at Valorant Champions 2022.

The Guard were matched against a revamped Sentinels roster in the opening match of the tournament.

While Sentinels have one of North America's leading Valorant rosters, The Guard have a reputation for rising through the tier-2 scene and earning the title of NA's best team in VCT 2022 Stage 1.

The two teams faced off in a best-of-three matchup on Day 1 of the VCT NA LCQ. It was a nail-biting series that witnessed two overtime victories. Sentinels kicked off with a 15-13 victory on Breeze. However, The Guard answered back with a 13-10 win on Ascent. The Stage 1 NA champions took Map 3 to overtime, claiming a 15-13 victory on Icebox to seal the series.

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The Guard's head coach mCe talks about the team's developments during their VCT 2022 NA LCQ campaign

In an exclusive interview with Sportskeeda Esports' Adarsh J Kumar, The Guard's head coach, Matthew "mCe" Elmore, talked about his team's opening-day victory over Sentinels at the VCT NA Last Chance Qualifiers. He also shared his thoughts on various other topics pertaining to VCT 2022.

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Q: The Guard are off to a great start at the VCT NA LCQ, with a victory over Sentinels. How would you describe your team's performance in this VCT matchup?

mCe: I think our performance was kind of in the middle. There were a lot of nerves and misplays on our part throughout all three maps, honestly. First map, we definitely should've closed out, but we made a ton of easily preventable mistakes. I think our nerves, for a young team, were kind of showing.

On the second map, we dropped the ball on a couple of different things that we weren't paying attention to on our comp. On the third map, I feel like we flat out threw a couple of rounds. Luckily, they threw one back in the OT, which allowed us to tie it back up.

I feel like this was not a high performance, but a medium performance on the high side for us. We showed why we were able to win at VCT Stage 1 and the hype around our team, but it wasn't polished. We made a bunch of mistakes, and we had to clean that up.

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Q: This was your first time going up against the new Sentinels roster in an official VCT matchup. How do you think they performed compared to what you had in mind?

mCe: It's about even. Anything that looked at that Sentinels roster and thought they'd be bad is just stupid, to put it plainly. Zellsis is one of the top flex players in North America, and anybody who argues that point just doesn't know this game.

Picking up shroud on a smoke character is a bit rough on him, I think, because he hasn't played the game that much. But he's a really good aimer and a smart player. He meshes with the style that they want to do, for the most part.

Obviously, you have a core from an international winning lineup (VCT 2021 Masters: Reykjavik). So, they are definitely a very scary team, but people underrate them. They are a 100% going to do pretty well in this event, honestly. I think anybody arguing that just doesn't understand it.

You saw a brand new comp out of them on Breeze, which they played pretty well. But they're going to be a solid team. It's Sentinels. They're never going to be a bad team.

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Q: With your VCT Stage 2 run concluding mid-June, The Guard has had roughly over a month to prepare for the VCT NA LCQ. How did you prepare the team to take on some of NA's finest contenders?

mCe: It's a lot of theory, a lot of scrim time, a lot of yelling, blood, sweat, and tears. It's been rough. It hasn't always been good. It's been worse recently than not. We had a lot of time to try things. We played a small tournament to try out a couple of comps and see if we wanted to play them.

We didn't have a ton of stuff on them, and we got put down by a couple of teams. But we learned more about those comps and styles because we were able to play them.

So, this is the first time since we made our team back in November that we've had a ton of time to work on stuff.

We have a couple of unique ideas, and we've been able to polish some of them. We just need to be able to convert those ideas and protocols into matches a lot cleaner, and you will see the level that we can get to. I think we can meet that this time around.

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Q: One of the key highlights of this matchup included shroud's VCT debut. After seeing him play against your team, what are your thoughts on his return to the pro scene?

mCe: Shroud is a really good player. I think anybody that steps in on a smokes character against some of the comps that we run is going to have a rough time. He hasn't played high-level Valorant. As he gets more and more reps in, I think he's going to look more comfortable.

But he's been thrown into an almost impossible situation, to play against some of the best teams in North America. Most of the guys on these teams have played at least tier-2 level Valorant for the last two years straight.

I think if he faces some interesting comps that he hasn't seen before, he might struggle. But if he plays something familiar, you can't let that guy settle in and get comfortable, or he will just destroy your team.

I think he did okay. I think a lot of people are going to say he underperformed. But I feel like it's not as easy as people think to play against some of these players, and I don't think he did that bad of a job.

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Q: Breeze has been one of The Guard’s most common perma-bans, with the team playing the map only twice in their VCT career. Can you tell us what made you ban Haven over Breeze?

mCe: When you watch that match, you wouldn't think that we went through those bans. We switched up our ban only for this match, solely because they probably planned to pick Haven or thought we were going to pick Haven.

We just threw a wrench in it and picked Breeze because maybe they hadn't scrimmed Breeze as much, thinking they thought they would play us. It kind of backfired since they had a pretty unique comp for Breeze, which we hadn't played against. We were just confident on the Breeze pick solely against them.

Breeze has always been the best map for TenZ, but there have been talks in their practice that he might be playing Chamber since he's been grinding it in ranked. So we kind of made the decision that if we make a play on this and TenZ is on Chamber, it will be a lot harder to play Chamber on that map and drop the kind of numbers and make the impact that he had before.

We were kind of right. TenZ is known for dropping 40s on that map on Jett. He still did well on Chamber, but I feel it was a lot easier to play against him.

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Q: The Guard’s team composition on Icebox was quite an unconventional one, with a double-Controller setup involving Brimstone and Viper. This was the first time you guys tried that out on Icebox. What made you go with that composition, and how effective is it in a VCT environment?

mCe: I think it's a really good comp. It's a spinoff. Gambit or M3 Champions have run it. OpTic has run it as well. I feel like we have a pretty good understanding of the comp, and I feel like it's a very hard comp to play against if you've never seen it. Typically, we would do a lot better than that.

We lost both pistols today, so we didn't look as good, and we kind of threw it. We should've closed it out a lot easier, but I feel like that comp is very hard to play against. The fact that we have multiple different comps that we can play really helps us out on different maps now.

We've played double-Controller before on Icebox with Omen, so it wasn't that big of a stretch for us to switch off from it. We tried it in practice, we had some good ideas, and we had really good results in practice. So, we figured this is the comp we are going to run heading into this.

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Q: As you're aware, Riot Games has plans to implement a franchise league structure to replace VCT in 2023. What do you think about The Guard's chances of earning a slot in the American league?

mCe: I'm pretty sure the management of all these organizations are under huge NDAs. Even if the team was in, I don't think we would get to know until they announce it.

I think we have a really good chance. I think we've changed the NA Valorant scene for the better, mostly in terms of practice and work ethic and even just the content surrounding teams. I think we have one of the best content/media departments in esports, bar none.

We've done some of these little things like little videos, little pieces, our pre-match graphics, and everything that is top-tier. I think it's funny because all these teams were in Valorant for so long without doing a thing. Then, franchising comes out, they see us doing it, and they think they should also probably do that if they want a slot.

I feel like some of these orgs weren't putting in the effort. When we came into this space, we immediately put in the effort and tried to do these things. Hopefully, we get rewarded for it. We have a lot of really cool stuff planned, whether franchise or not, but I think we have a really good chance of getting a spot in it.

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Q: Would you prefer to see Valorant go with the new franchise structure instead of the existing VCT format?

mCe: I would like to see a hybrid. I would like there to be LANs or tournaments where some of the franchise teams start. But there should be like an extra 1-4 slots for teams that aren't franchised to have a chance to play in some of these bigger tournaments.

I think they need to develop the tier-2 scene because if you just do the top, the bottom will fail. But I have confidence that they have good plans and ideas for things. I just really hope that the tier-2 scene has something developed so that we don't lose everything underneath this.

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Q: Due to complications with franchising, a lot of organizations have left the pro Valorant space. This, in turn, leaves fewer opponents for the VCT LCQ teams to scrim against. How much of an issue has that caused The Guard in their preparation for the tournament?

mCe: I think the biggest issue is that we haven't played a lot of the VCT LCQ teams. When you play the LCQ teams, everybody is hiding their defaults and stuff. But the big thing is, we've been playing a lot of teams from the tier-2 and tier-3 scene. Shoutout to everybody that's helped us out.

We're not as picky as some of these other top teams when it comes to who we're playing. Even when we're playing lower-tier teams that we've historically done well against, we use their practice productively, and I think that's a good difference for us. It is hard because we don't know if something really works or if we're just better than the other team sometimes, though.

A lot of the time, we struggle against some of these teams because we're just better. We make plays work that probably shouldn't work, and if the other team is a little better, we would see that earlier.

I just think we use practice very proficiently, which is why we are able to get away with it. But it is definitely a detriment not to have all these teams that we can play.

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Q: The Guard missed out on the chance to play at Valorant’s first-ever live audience at VCT Masters: Copenhagen. How much are you looking forward to making it to the VCT Champions in Istanbul and playing in front of a live crowd?

mCe: I think it will be incredible. You hear a lot of things about the Turkish fans, that if we're able to play a little bit better than we are right now and make it through, it's going to be a dream come true. I'm so excited for it, whoever gets to go, whether it's us or any of these teams.

I think it's going to be a phenomenal experience, and I'm really looking forward to what the Turkish fans show up with. Their energy level and everything is going to be absolutely incredible. I'm a huge fan of them.

We met so many cool people from Turkey when we were in Europe. The Turkish players are incredible. I'm sure their fans are going to be so sick, so hopefully, we can make it.