LOUD in Grand final; ZETA keeps surprising — VCT 2022 Stage 1 Masters Playoffs

Loading

In Reykjavik, VCT 2022 Stage 1 Masters, the first international Valorant tournament in 2022, is drawing to a close. On Friday, April 22, there were two playoff matches to determine the first Grand finalist and the finalists of the lower bracket. In a new article, Esports Charts sums up the game day, tells about the results of the matches and a new viewership record of the tournament.

The tournament resumed after a two-day break following matches in the second round of the Masters: Reykjavik playoffs. In the first match of the game day, LOUD encountered the last remaining team from North America, OpTic Gaming. 

The Brazilian team, that defeated everyone in the local league, continues to crush their opponents in "Masters ", even though the beginning of the game for the Matias ‘saadhak’ Delipetro's team was clearly not the best: LOUD was defeated on the opponent's pick (Fracture) with a score of 2:13. However, that did not faze the Brazilians at all, as they won the second map (13:8 on Ascent), and were stronger on Desider (13:11 on Icebox). Thus, LOUD advanced to the Grand final first: a phenomenal success for the young Brazilians!

In the second match, Indonesia's best team Paper Rex faced the main surprise of this Masters, the Japanese ZETA DIVISION team. After the first map, it seemed that a miraculous road of ZETA in the tournament came to an end, as the team lost on its own pick (Icebox) by a score of 6:13. However, the Japanese retaliated with a 13:2 victory on Haven, and then won 13:10 on Split, the decisive map. ZETA can already secure third place in the tournament, but the team doesn't want to stop — OpTic will have to do their best if they want to contend for the title.

Playoffs Day 6 was a record-setting day in terms of viewership statistics. Viewers spent more than 3.7 million hours in the seven hours of airtime, and the Average Viewers number was 532K.

The most popular match of the day and the entire tournament was the encounter between OpTic Gaming and LOUD — almost 773K Peak Viewers, most of whom were English speaking (290K Peak Viewers) and Portuguese speaking audiences (279K Peak Viewers and a new record for the Portuguese in Valorant).

Moreover, the ZETA vs. Paper Rex match also drew a huge audience — nearly 668K Peak Viewers. The Japanese audience was most excited about the match, as expected — the number of Peak Viewers on local broadcasts reached 358K, the highest number of the tournament among all languages, as well as a new record for Japanese in Valorant. 

Today, April 2, there is only one match in the Masters: Reykjavik playoffs: ZETA plays against OpTic Gaming to qualify for the grand final. The game starts at 7 PM CET. The winner will compete with LOUD for the title tomorrow. You can follow the results and viewership statistics on the tournament page.