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After two months of qualifiers, the regional finals for Valorant's First Strike began on Friday with two matches from the North American region.
First Strike is the first Riot Games-sponsored esports tournament for Valorant and the massive response from the community ensures a very bright future for the scene. Day one of the North American Regional Finals for First Strike saw two best of three series featuring four of the best teams from the region.
However, with the regional finals being a single-elimination bracket format there will be a few top-tier Valorant teams at the end of every day who will have to depart from the finals. Similarly, on the first day of the quarterfinals, fans were forced to bid farewell to Immortals and Renegades after 2-0 defeats against Team Envy and Team SOLOMID respectively.
Here's how the action unfolded on the first day of the North American finals of First Strike and what else is in store for Valorant fans as the tournament progresses.
Valorant First Strike Quarterfinals - North America, Day One
Starting the day off with a game on Valorant's newest map Icebox, Team Envy drafted a lineup of Raze, Omen, Sova, Cypher, and Reyna to matchup against Immortals draft of Sova, Omen, Jett, Killjoy, and Reyna. However, the first match from the first best of three series of the day seemed rather one sided as Team Envy secured the map with a comfortable 13-5 scoreline.
For the second map however, Immortals came prepared on Ascent. Keeping a similar draft from their first map with a single replacement of Killjoy with Cypher, Immortals seemed much more in rhythm compared to the first map.
However, after replacing Raze with the Phoenix during the draft, Team Envy closed out the map and series just as Immortals were on the verge of forcing overtime. With a final scoreline of 13-11 in favour of Team Envy, Immortals was knocked out of the tournament.
The second series of the day between Renegades and Team SOLOMID began with a thumping victory for TSM on Ascent. With a draft of Phoenix, Omen, Sova, Raze, and Jett, TSM secured the first map with a comfortable 13-1 scoreline. Renegades with their draft of Skye, Jett, Omen, Sova, and Raze found themselves at the end of their wit as TSM absolutely dominated the first map.
With a minor change to their draft for the second map, Renegades picked up Breach in place of Sova for additional utilities. However, TSM's draft included replacing Sova with Skye which worked out in their favour.
As Renegades put up a better showing than they did on the first map, TSM secured Bind as well as the series with a final scoreline of 13-5.
As the action from day one concludes, day two from First Strike North America will feature four more top-tier Valorant teams. While T1 goes head to head against 100 Thieves, FaZe Clan will be looking to secure a spot in the semi finals as they face Sentinels.
