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Stage 2 of VCT 2022 has kicked off in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, as 12 teams from these regions are facing regional competition to claim a spot in the upcoming Valorant tournament, Masters: Copenhagen.
Acend, one of the most reputed Valorant rosters in the world, returned to top-tier action at Valorant Stage 2 EMEA Challengers after an early elimination in Stage 1. In their opening match, they faced OG LDN UTD and claimed a flawless 2-0 victory.
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The 2021 VCT Champions made a few adjustments to their roster prior to the start of VCT Stage 2. Acend welcomed in two new players - MONSTEERR and vakk, in hopes of stabilizing their roster and fighting for the Champions title yet again in VCT 2022.
MONSTEERR makes his debut for Acend against OG LDN UTD at the VCT 2022 Stage 2 EMEA Challengers
In a conversation with Sportskeeda Esports' Adarsh J Kumar, Acend's new professional hire Ondřej "MONSTEERR" Petrů commented on his debut performance at the VCT 2022 Stage 2 EMEA Challengers.
Q: How would you describe your experience of playing your first official match for Acend?
MONSTEERR: There wasn't as much pressure as I thought there would be, from my side. I thought I would overthink it, but I just told myself to go with full confidence and play my game, which basically worked out. I wasn't stressed. I was just doing what I felt was best.
Q: You had an incredible debut on Icebox today, followed by an impressive performance on Split. What individual quality do you bring to the team?
MONSTEERR: I think I bring a lot of firepower to the team. I feel like I should be responsible for bringing information to the team. I think I showed that on both maps. Taking space like I did on Split and bringing firepower like I did on Icebox are the most important things for me.
Q: You joined Acend just over two weeks ago. How did you adjust to the team's playstyle in such a short while?
MONSTEERR: At the beginning, we were just playing adaptive. The tryouts were still going on in the initial days of my arrival, so we had to solve the most important things about communication.
After that, I had a lot of 1v1s with the assistant coach. That helped me a lot because I could just adjust to the playstyle of the boys and understand what I was most comfortable with.
Q: Acend was the first EMEA team at the VCT Stage 2 Challengers to play against Fade. Did you expect OG LDN UTD to pick Fade, and how did you counter-strat the Agent?
MONSTEERR: Basically, we felt like OGLU would go for Fade. I wouldn't say we were ready for her. We didn't overthink anything. We played against her a lot in scrims.
For this match, we thought that if we started losing and if we didn't know what to do against Fade, it would be fine to lose a few rounds and just adapt and continue from a 3-0 or 4-0 deficit.
We were prepared for the worst, but we knew that in case they went for Fade, we had to adapt and try to find a solution as soon as possible.
I think we showed on Icebox after our pistol rounds that we could find a solution to keep playing against Fade. We found out where the reveals were coming from, how they were making her valuable to the team, and we tried to play around that.
Q: Acend will be playing against FOKUS in Week 2 of the VCT EMEA Challengers. This will be your first encounter against the side. What are your expectations for that matchup?
MONSTEERR: I'm going into full confidence mode and calling it 2-0. I don't think we can underestimate them because they still showed a lot in the EMEA Promotion tournament and even in the VRL.
I think they are really strong, and they will want to prove themselves as well. So they will definitely be hungry to be the underdogs of the group and surprise everyone. My prediction is that we will win 2-0, but we will not underestimate them. We are just going to be playing our own game.
Q: Acend are one of the most reputed teams in VCT history. After seeing an early exit from the team in VCT 2022 Stage 1, what can your fans expect for Stage 2 of VCT 2022?
MONSTEERR: I think they can expect us to already book tickets for Copenhagen because we are going to be there. We definitely want to make it to Copenhagen and will do our best to make it happen.
