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VCT Americas League is going strong, with Week 4 about to begin. The last week featured some intense matches for teams like LOUD and Leviatan, who displayed phenomenal performances on the big stage in L.A. While Furia Esports had to see a tough loss against LOUD, the former still showed tremendous effort coming into the tournament.
FURIA Esports took their first loss against arguably the best team in the region on the final day of Week 3. Fans were excited to see two Brazilian teams take on each other as both rosters did not shy away from putting out their best in VCT Americas League.
FrosT from Furia Esports shares his thoughts on facing LOUD at the VCT Americas League
Hector "FrosT" Rosario is an American professional Valorant personality who is currently the general manager for FURIA Esports. He has previously been the head coach for 100 Thieves as well.
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In an interview with Sportskeeda, FrosT was asked to share his thoughts on the game against LOUD in VCT Americas League.
Q: How much do you think Furia has improved in VCT Americas League since the Lock//in event?
FrosT: The improvement has been pretty evident to me. If you think about it, this team has never won an international game until LOCK//IN. We had an opportunity to beat Fnatic and should have probably beaten them. We lost a 5v2 and two 4v2s. We probably would have won the series if we did not throw those rounds. So it goes from never really winning a game to beating good teams.
I was stunned on a personal level, seeing what I saw on LOCK//IN. I came here and expected a much different level. I think our level as a team, in one way, is not as high, and in another, much better. Playing in Brazil, for instance, was a massive advantage for them. They got a lot of energy from the crowd and were much more aggressive. In America, it's not the home crowd. It's not the same.
Q: What was the most challenging part about cracking LOUD's composition in VCT Americas League?
FrosT: The composition is easy to manage. I think we had an excellent game plan, and we expected what did happen. It was easy to play against them. We knew what was going on. Unfortunately, though, it's tough to deal with aspas. He is incredibly talented. Split could have gone our way, but it didn't. We lost tight rounds.
On Icebox, though, it was their Harbor selection. It wasn't easy to deal with. I think Harbor is underrated. We have used the Harbor-Viper combo before, although not in the Americas. It is incredible. The way they used him had a significant impact on that map. It wasn't easy to deal with.
Q: Gekko is seeing his first tournament after his release. What are your thoughts on that Agent, and will Furia ever incorporate him into games in VCT Americas League?
FrosT: On a personal level, I rate Gekko pretty highly. I think the difficulty in incorporating Gekko has much to do with practice time, something we did not have much coming into this season. Our Coach, Carlao, is still not in L.A. due to visa issues. So we had massive problems practicing. There was a period in LOCK//IN where we did not practice for a month.
Incorporating Gekko is an enormous task. We need a lot of practice time. But since we rate him highly, I expect we will eventually incorporate him. The short duration of the VCT Americas League makes it difficult for us to do so.
Q: Coming into the VCT Americas League, do you think Gekko has the potential to replace a lot of traditional Initiators in Valorant?
FrosT: Certainly, yes. Seeing what happens in Bind is exciting because Sova dominates the map. Some teams like to run Skye since she is incredible on defense. Very curious to see certain Flash spots and other utilities from Gekko being played out on that map. Sometime before Japan, Gekko might be played by every team.
Q: Do you think Bind coming out and replacing Icebox is a good decision mid-season? And is Icebox a suitable replacement for Bind?
FrosT: No, I'm not too fond of it. I think mid-season map changes are not only a problem, but it also shows a level of misunderstanding of this entire process. Teams have to move to L.A., and they get limited practice time for a season that doesn't matter, but they say it matters, right before it, in a different country. Then, in a middle of a season, they will change the map pool.
Then the biggest problem is the inclusion of Lotus. It added a weird element. Lotus is a three-bomb-site map. So now we have two three-bomb-site maps. Now the problem is these maps are not very similar. For both maps, you can certainly say they are attack-sided. The difference is Haven has a lot of ability for defenders to cut long rotations.
But in Lotus, it does not exist the same way. In theory, you have this opportunity, but the problem is that the map is too small. Now, even talking about defense takes a lot of time, effort, and experimentation. This means we need more scrims. We are supposed to do this before Super Week. Now we have to deal with Haven and Lotus, and they eliminate Icebox. Then, they added Bind.
I think they should have removed Haven. I don't think people understand the complexity of three-bomb-site maps. We have to deal with two of them. Lotus has been a linchpin for many teams, especially in Europe, to use it as a map steal.
Q: You will face Evil Geniuses next game in VCT Americas League. What are your expectations from the matchup
FrosT: E.G. hopes to turn their season around by getting another win. We are unhappy with this loss and need to keep winning. We are very confident in this schedule. It's interesting now because we played three of the top three teams, in retrospect. We have passed Leviatan; we will play EG, Cloud9, and MIBR alongside LOUD.
We need to come back strong. We should be able to handle our business. We should be able to do what we expect to do.
Q: VCT Americas League is showcasing a solid region, and it's evident by the level of games it has been showing. What are your opinions when comparing the Americas with the other two regions?
FrosT: It's exciting, but I would say that the VCT Americas League is the weakest. You can argue that there is not much difference between us and APAC. I know Team Secret hasn't been playing well. I think Gen.G is playing well.
It will never be like, "N.A. top four could destroy that." Not really. I mean, you could say LOUD can be the best among them. I think it's a toss-up. At best, it's even.
