G2 valyn explains the approach of rematching teams after VALORANT meta changes

Brandon Moore

Brandon Moore

G2 Esports’ valyn, the org’s VALORANT in-game leader, answered our question regarding the difficulty of a rematch when the meta shifts.

G2 Esports took down Cloud9, in a rematch from the VCT Americas Stage 1 playoffs. With a victory in that match as well, some may begin to think that G2 has C9's number. So, we decided to ask Jacob "valyn" Batio how difficult it is to rematch a team in this current state of VALORANT.

Map changes, Agent buffs and nerfs, format tweaks, and so much more see the meta of VALORANT shift almost constantly. Let's see what valyn had to say.

G2 valyn answers our question on the difficulty of rematching teams in VALORANT

(Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games)
(Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games)

Following the VCT Americas 2024 Stage 2 series, the broadcast desk interviewed G2's IGL valyn. A graphic on the screen requested questions for the IGL be sent in through Twitch. And luckily enough, they choose ours!

We delivered the question:

"With huge game changes, how difficult is it to rematch a team, knowing they can play completely different than the last time?"

If you missed this part of the broadcast, here is valyn's answer:

"My most recent experience was playing Heretics three times. I think rematching a team is very difficult. As a competitor, and I'm sure meL can also attest to this, when you lose a match, especially when it's close. When you rewatch the VOD, you're like, 'Dude, if we fix this little one mistake, we could've won the game.'

"So, when a team loses to you in a close fashion, they can rewatch the VOD and say, 'Dude, if we fix this one thing, we can beat them.' While on our side, it feels like our stuff was working. Our stuff was good, we won the game maybe.

"I always, even in wins, try to learn a lesson from it. The other team feels more confident in the rematch. And also, going into a new patch like the question asked, it is difficult. We have not as much time to implement new stuff.

"They have all the footage on us, because we just competed, and they can swap up comps. We went into this game with the mindset of, 'We have to focus on us, 100%. We can't focus too much on them, anti-strating, whatever.' Because they could run anything.

"That was a big focus for us. Just nailing down each part of our game, to where there's no gaps, there's no mistakes that can happen. And of course, there is still going to be some, right? That's the mindset going into these matches, you don't know what they're going to play.

"You've just got to full-focus on you. And you have to live adapt. That's where you see the IGL's have to step up even more. The team has to step up even more. You don't know what's going to happen to you, and when it happens live, you only have so many rounds to actually fix it.

"I would say that happened to us on Lotus, actually. They ran a double Initiator, Breach and Gekko. We haven't seen that. We haven't competed against that. That was a match we had to just live adjust, and it all worked out."

- G2 valyn

He mentioned the trio of matches against Team Heretics at VCT Masters Shanghai, where maps and Agents remained the same across the tournament. This time, against C9, the rematch was between major VALORANT updates, and with minimal time to prepare, they focused on themselves to get the win.

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