LOUD Less On Close Call, Perfect Map Against EG
At 5-0, LOUD is the only undefeated team in VALORANT Champions Tour Americas 2023, but for a good amount of their most recent match, it looked as though the reigning VCT champions would be made mortal. Evil Geniuses shocked the sold-out crowd at Riot Games Arena this past Monday by trouncing LOUD to the tune of a 13-3 map 1 win on Split. LOUD was able to even up the series on Haven, but saving themselves from losing the match by a narrow score of 13-10 is not where the Brazilian side wanted to find itself.
Then, LOUD made up for lost time and fulfilled all expectations and then some. LOUD took the match without giving Evil Geniuses a single round on Pearl — the first 13-0 in VCT Americas 2023.
LOUD exhibited an impressive display of power against EG on Pearl, but Felipe "Less" Basso came away from the win feeling bittersweet. “Honestly, we're not very happy about what happened at all,” Less told Esports Illustrated after LOUD’s win over EG. “The first map was very shameful for us; we did not see that coming.”
The 13-0 on Pearl might have been enough to wash away mistakes in the previous maps due to the match ending in a win for a less experienced player, but not for Less. With LOUD, he won VCT 2022 and qualified for the finals of VCT 2023: LOCK//IN São Paulo earlier this year. His sights are set on what went wrong, not making score-based history in the Americas league.
“13-0; 13-11 — it's all the same to us,” Less uttered lackadaisically. “Ultimately, it's just a win. We're going to try to focus on what happened in that first map because that's not us.”
The early haymaker thrown by EG may have been a blessing in disguise for LOUD. Through their five wins in VCT Americas 2023, LOUD has been challenged at times, but they’ve never looked as vulnerable as when they were thrown for a loop by EG. It’s hard to imagine they’ll allow themselves to be caught off-guard like that in their last four matches after the bout with EG.
“Honestly, we're not really too worried. There are no specific teams that we are afraid to go against, to be quite frank with you,” said Less. “We're just going to respect every team because they're all getting stronger. Essentially, we just need to keep on doing what we're doing to keep the streak going.”
Less also had a message for the fans ahead of LOUD’s next match against KRÜ Esports on Monday, May 1 at 12:00pm PT: “Keep calm about what just happened today. We're going to keep focusing on training and doing what we're doing.”
