Author: Logan Herman Original Link

Apes Together Strong have secured a spot in the winner’s match of the 2014 VALORANT Major, after an exciting 2-0 win over SnakeG9’s The Trashed Pandas. Both maps went to overtime and featured numerous big plays and momentum shifts.

Apes Together Strong kicked off Haven with a strong pistol hold on B from WAZZUP BEIJING. Despite losing to the attackers’ force buy, Apes Together Strong managed to stabilize the economy thanks to a great anchor defense on the C site from The Loonaverse. The half continued to be dominated by the defenders, with neetsk and WAZZUP BEIJING making hero plays with popflashes and TP flanks. The Trashed Pandas repeatedly failed to get into strong post-plants, ending the half down 3-9.

The second half began well for SnakeG9’s team, stabilizing early with multifrags from CornholeKlunk. When the gun rounds began it was back and forth, but seemingly Apes Together Strong managed to gain control of the economy after a key rotate to the A site. However, the game was not closed out cleanly, giving up multiple post-plants in man advantages and against weaker buys, a 1v3 from CornholeKlunk and defuse from kfox being the highlights. The game went to overtime, and in the first round old, having a very quiet game, managed to clutch a 1v2 after an unfortunate team kill despite having low health and giving away a sound cue. Apes Together Strong managed to seal the deal with a superb lurk from WAZZUP BEIJING, who ended the map with 34 kills.

As predicted, The Trashed Pandas asserted control early despite strong entries and a pistol win from Apes Together Strong. XEprogamerX pulled off several multikill rounds in mid, and SnakeG9 pulled off a fantastic 1v4 to keep his team in the driver’s seat. Another quad kill from SnakeG9 secured a 7-5 half for his team.

The Trashed Pandas began the half strong, winning the pistol and later winning a forcebuy after dropping the first gun round. However, a huge play on a save round from izmattk, denying a trade and luring an enemy into WAZZUP BEIJING’S Shorty. Apes Together Strong struggled to deny trades on A, but managed to grind out enough remaining rounds with solid holds on the B site. kfox nearly managed to win a 1v3 from B main to end the map and bring the series to a decider, but The Loonaverse denied the play to force another overtime. In overtime, Ender stalled Apes Together Strong’s B hit by killing two attackers and staying alive, but WAZZUP BEIJING decimated the rotators, ending the round and giving his team series point. On the defending side, izmattk crept into an unchecked corner mid and mowed down the mid play from Trashed Pandas, completing the second 30 bomb of the series from Apes Together Strong and securing the match. The end of the second map was underscored by the struggles of SnakeG9, who managed to secure only one frag to roughly sixteen deaths after his big rounds on Split.