The Red Bull Home Ground 2022 will soon host its grand finale, pitting two top-performing North American Valorant teams against one another in an intense best-of-five series. Following a nail-biting group stage and exciting playoffs, the tournament has finally reached its ultimate phase, and fans can expect to be massively entertained over the next few hours.
The highly-anticipated year-end tournament began with two groups, each featuring four teams. At the group stage, two under-performing teams were eliminated, allowing the organizers to put six teams in a bracket stage. The two table-topper teams from the group stage went through to the semifinals directly, while the remaining four teams were matched up against one another in two loser-out quarterfinal series.
Two semifinal matchups followed the quarterfinal games. 100 Thieves and Cloud9 emerged as the ultimate winners and thus became finalists. This article will delve into the possible outcome of today's ultimate high-stakes Red Bull Home Ground series.
100 Thieves vs Cloud9: Who will win the Valorant Red Bull Home Ground #3 grand final matchup?
Both teams are more than capable of emerging victorious today. After all, they have defeated all their opponents so far to reach the grand finale. Needless to say, the 100 Thieves vs. Cloud9 matchup will be an intriguing series to witness for fans of the game.
Both Valorant rosters underwent changes owing to the VCT format overhaul, which was announced a few months prior and is expected to take effect in 2023. As a result, 100 Thieves and Cloud9 are still in the process of building the perfect synergy in their teams. That said, the changes don't appear to have affected them much, as evidenced by their impeccable form in the Red Bull Home Ground #3.
100 Thieves hired former XSET athlete Cryocells in place of their ex-Duelist Will, while Cloud9 took a few extra steps to rebuild most of their roster. The latter has hired some of the best North American athletes, including Yay, who is presently considered the best player worldwide.
Predictions
Considering their present form and roster composition, Cloud9 may have a slight upper hand over 100 Thieves. However, the competition is too close and unpredictable for anyone to arrive at a strong conclusion.
With Cryocells and Asuna at the forefront of the 100 Thieves Valorant roster, the Bang-Derrek-Stellar trio is more than capable of fulfilling all the expectations from a well-balanced Valorant roster. 100 Thieves may also be in a better synergical state than Cloud9, considering the number of roster changes the latter underwent.
However, Cloud9 features the best Valorant athlete in the world and a strong overall player composition, with Zellsis, Leaf, Xeppa, and Vanity to back up Yay at every point.
All things considered, Cloud9 have a better chance of winning the Valorant Red Bull Home Ground 2022. However, 100 Thieves is definitely not letting Cloud9 take the victory without putting up a tough fight.
Head-to-head
100 Thieves and Cloud9 have played five Valorant matchups against each other in the past, among which three have been won by the latter. That said, both rosters have undergone significant changes since their last encounter. Hence, the head-to-head results may not give much insight into this case.
Recent results
100 Thieves won four out of the last five Valorant series they participated in, while Cloud9 has three wins to their name. 100 Thieves triumphs over Cloud9 when it comes to recent results, considering that their roster secured four impeccable wins in the ongoing Valorant Red Bull Home Ground 2022. Cloud9 lost one series to FOKUS in the group stage.
Potential lineups
100 Thieves
- Peter "Asuna" Mazuryk
- Derrek "Derrek" Ha
- Brenden "stellar" McGrath (IGL)
- William "Will" Cheng
- Sean "bang" Bezerra
Cloud9
- Nathan “leaf” Orf
- Erick “Xeppaa” Bach
- Anthony “vanity” Malaspina
- Jaccob “yay” Whiteaker
- Jordan “Zellsis” Montemurro
Where to watch
The Cloud9 vs 100 Thieves Grand Finale matchup will commence on December 11, 2022, at 4 PM GMT / 8 AM PDT / 9:30 PM IST. Fans can tune in to twitch.tv/redbull or hop onto Red Bull Gaming's official YouTube channel to watch the game live.