OpTic Gaming vs The Guard: VCT 2022 NA Stage-1 Challengers Playoffs Upper-Finals prediction, head-to-head, livestream details, and more

OpTic Gaming is ready to take on The Guard tonight in the Valorant Champions Tour (VCT) NA Stage-1 Challengers Playoffs Upper-Finals. The two teams will face each other to secure their slot in the Grand-Finals. The winner of this match will also confirm the ticket to Iceland in the upcoming VCT Stage-1 Masters Reykjavik in April.

A total of two teams from North America will represent the region in next month's international LAN event in Iceland. One will confirm their slot by winning tonight's match, while the loser will try their luck in the Loser Finals tomorrow against the winner between Cloud9 Blue and XSET.

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OpTic Gaming and The Guard: Who will confirm their slot in the VCT Stage-1 Masters Reykjavik tonight?

OpTic Gaming and The Guard defeated Cloud9 Blue and Luminosity Gaming, respectively, in the Upper-Semifinal last Saturday to reach the Upper-Finals. These two sides will now face each other in a best-of-three series tonight to make their way through to the Grand Finals.

Prediction

Both of these teams are currently in explosive form. Since the start of the tournament, both have delivered some dominant performances. There is hardly any margin of error to separate these two sides ahead of the game.

However, OpTic Gaming is the slight favorite for today's game because of their experience with such big games. The team already represented the region in two international LAN events last year, and their experience will surely help the side outperform their opponent tonight.

Meanwhile, The Guard has established themselves as the dark horses in this tournament, taking down some big fish like 100 Thieves, XSET, and most recently, Sentinels. It will be interesting to see if they can pull off another miracle tonight or not.

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Head-to-head

It will be the first encounter between the two sides. Fans are eagerly waiting to see how this new rivalry takes shape.

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Recent results

Both teams have lost one of their last five games in this competition. While one team will worsen their recent statistics after the game.

OpTic Gaming and The Guard recent results and head-to-head (Image via VLR.gg)

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Potential lineup

OpTic Gaming:

• Austin "crashies" Roberts
• Victor Wong
• Jimmy "Marved" Nguyen
• Jaccob "Yay" Whiteaker
• Pujan "FNS" Mehta

The Guard:

• Michael "neT" Bernet
• Jacob "valyn" Batio
• Jonah "JonahP" Pulice
• Ha "Sayaplayer" Jung-woo
• Trent "trent" Cairns

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When and where to watch

The exciting match between OpTic Gaming and The Guard in the VCT NA Stage-1 Challengers Playoffs will be broadcast live on the Valorant Champions Tour YouTube and Twitch channels on March 26 from 1:30 AM IST.