Valorant may draw a lot of inspiration from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, but it’s adding a lot to the formula – and a recent exhibition tournament between the game’s developers and an elite group of professional CS:GO players has demonstrated that there’s still a lot for the public to learn about Riot’s new shooter.
During Valorant’s first week in closed beta, a group of big-name streamers who have made their names in CS:GO got together to take on members of Valorant’s development team. As our sister site The Loadout reports, Team Stream included Micahel ‘shroud’ Grzesiek, Jaryd ‘summit1g’ Lazar, Tyler ‘skadoodle’ Latham, Erik ‘fl0m’ Flom, and Coby ‘Dizzy’ Meadows. If you don’t keep up with the streaming scene, just understand that this group includes some of streaming’s best CS:GO talent, and they’re usually not to be trifled with.
That’s if you aren’t on the team that’s actually making the game you’re playing, however. Riot’s squad had the information advantage over the streamers, who had only been playing the game for a few days when the match went down.
That knowledge gap made the difference: the developers beat the streamers in 26 rounds out of 31 – a verifiable skunking by any reasonable measure.
The matchup was all for fun, and the streamers realised going into it that they were set up for a tough time. But it’s hard to imagine they anticipated getting worked this hard.
If you want to get into the game early, here’s how to sign up for the Valorant closed beta. Here’s a hint: you’ll have to watch some streamers play it first.