"We were confident about Fracture": Acend coach Nbs after Grand Finals victory against Gambit Esports at Valorant Champions 2021

Over a million viewers worldwide witnessed two of Valorant's leading teams - Acend and Gambit Esports engage in an enticing bout to claim the coveted Valorant Champions 2021 trophy.

The Grand Finals of Valorant Champions 2021 stretched across a best-of-five series, which resulted in Acend conceding Breeze (11-13) and Fracture (3-13) and succeeding on Ascent (13-7), Icebox (14-12), and Split (13-8).

Gambit Esports entered the tournament with a reputation for winning the recent VCT Stage 3 Masters Berlin. Acend is a recently formed team that climbed through various stages of the Valorant Champions Tour 2021 as underdogs.

During the post-match press conference, Acend's squad, along with their coach, answered questions from Sportskeeda.

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Acend coach Nbs commented on the team's performance on Fracture against Gambit in Valorant Champions 2021 Grand Finals

The squad featured Mehmet "cNed" Yağız İpek, Santeri "BONECOLD" Sassi, Aleksander "zeek" Zygmunt, Patryk "starxo" Kopczynski, and Vlad "Kiles" Shvets. They competed in the year-long Valorant Champions Tour 2021 to earn the title of Valorant's first-ever world champions.

During the post-match press conference, Adarsh J Kumar of Sportskeeda asked Acend, "We've seen Acend play Fracture only once before Valorant Champions 2021. How comfortable was the team with the map in training?

Nbs, Acend's coach, replied:

"Our scrims on Fracture were really good, coming into the tournament. We were waiting to pull a Fracture map-pick out our sleeves when we got the chance. A lot of teams leave Bind open and ban Fracture instead, and we usually go with Bind since we are good on the map. However, since Gambit always banned Bind, we were really confident about Fracture."

Acend's young roster put on an excellent display of talent throughout the series. The team, however, didn't look comfortable playing on Fracture. Gambit claimed the map with a 3-13 scoreline, providing them with a 2-1 lead in the series. This shortened Acend's window of opportunity for victory as they needed to win both of the remaining maps.

Nbs mentions:

"We didn't perform well today, but i think it's the lack of official games on the map. There's a major difference between scrims and official matches. I think we only lost 1 or 2 out of our 20-30 scrims on Fracture. Even though we do well on scrims, it didn't reflect on our performance today, unfortunately."

Despite the daunting loss on Fracture, Acend were able to get back on their feet and play to their full potential in the remaining maps. Acend are renowned for their mental fortitude and adaptability. The team moved on from the devastating map defeat and claimed the remaining avenues to emerge as victors.

"Despite our bitter experience today, we will improve and work towards a victory on the map in future occasions."