Edward Gaming made history by becoming the first team from China to win a VALORANT match at an international event after a huge victory over NAVI at VCT Masters Tokyo.
The win was a morale-boosting one that has even given the team’s superstar ZmjjKk the confidence that things will get better in subsequent matches, including Wednesday’s fixture. EDG’s win against NAVI was an upset thanks to their poor run before Tuesday’s meetup losing four games it had played prior.
Furthermore, NAVI were also favourites to win thanks to their status as the most decorated team in the competition, as each player on NAVI’s roster either has won a Champions or Masters trophy in their hardware cabinet.
NAVI fought back from an early EDG lead on Pearl
to win their map pick with a 12-9 lead; EDG then won three rounds in a row to force overtime. EDG won after three overtime periods, thanks to Zheng “ZmjjKK” Yongkang and Zhang “Smoggy” Zhao, who both finished with 30+ kills each.
After the match, EDG’s 19-year-old ZmjjKK stated that Chinese VALORANT is beginning to experience a new start and went on to predict that Wednesday’s fixture, which is a rematch with T1 tomorrow, will be an EDG win that will eliminate and send T1 home.
EDG has seen three of its five maps go to OT while they also fell to T1 on Pearl OT in the first game against T1. However, they won Pearl and Bind against NAVI. What makes EDG impressive is the fact that VALORANT hasn’t been officially released in their region, as it’s only closed on Beta in China.
EDG will hope to take revenge versus T1 and also have a final opportunity to make playoffs when they play on Wednesday, June 14.
Daniel Ademiju Idowu
