The opening day of the 2026 VCT Americas Kickoff noticed ENVY and Cloud9 safe victories over Evil Geniuses and LOUD, respectively.
Because of this, each groups moved on to Spherical 2 of the Higher Bracket, whereas the losers dropped all the way down to the Center Bracket.
ENVY Makes a Sturdy Debut
That expectation held true early on, because the 2023 VALORANT Champions winner dominated the newcomers within the first half of Abyss, racing to an 11-2 lead. Simply when it appeared like Evil Geniuses would full a simple clear sweep, ENVY turned the tide.
ENVY received six of seven rounds within the second half to shift the strain in the direction of Evil Geniuses; nonetheless, it wasn’t sufficient, as Evil Geniuses in the end closed out the map 13-9.
With ENVY gaining momentum on Abyss, Corrode was total far more aggressive. The primary half was a back-and-forth affair between either side, with ENVY taking the opening two rounds earlier than Evil Geniuses responded with 4 consecutive spherical wins, just for ENVY to take the lead as soon as once more.
The half ended with a 7-5 scoreline in ENVY’s favour, and regardless of Evil Geniuses making an attempt to claw again, the previous maintained management to win the map 13-10 and push the collection to a decider.
Bind served as the ultimate map of the collection, the place ENVY had a unbelievable 6-0 begin earlier than Evil Geniuses narrowed the hole to 7-5. Evil Geniuses as soon as once more struggled on the defensive facet, permitting ENVY to shut out the map 13-9 and safe the primary VCT Americas Kickoff collection 2-1.
ENVY’s duelist Evan ‘Eggsterr’ Grady was the highest-rated participant of the collection with a 1.20 score and 240 ACS, adopted by controller Hunter ‘encourage’ Schline with a 1.10 score and 224 ACS.
Cloud9 Clear Sweeps LOUD
The second collection of the day kicked off with LOUD showcasing a powerful efficiency on Haven, successful 5 back-to-back rounds after dropping the primary two. Nonetheless, the remainder of the half belonged to Cloud9, because it put 7-5 on the board.
The North American facet carried that momentum into the second half, successful six of eight rounds to take the map 13-9.
Abyss, alternatively, was a reasonably shut battle. On this case, LOUD began off with two spherical wins adopted by C9 taking a 5-3 lead. The South American squad pushed again to show the tables and end the primary half at 7-5.
The second half, nonetheless, was dominated by Cloud9, and though LOUD managed to select up just a few rounds, C9 emerged victorious with a 13-11 win, sealing the collection 2-0.
Cloud9’s Erik ‘penny’ Penny obtained the best score of 1.24 within the collection, whereas the crew’s duelist Francis ‘OXY’ Hoang recorded the best ACS of 236.
Each winners will return to the stage on January seventeenth to compete for a spot within the Higher Bracket semi-finals. Followers can catch all of the motion stay on VCT Americas’ Twitch and YouTube channels.
