London-headquartered esports organisation Fnatic won VCT Valorant Masters Tokyo in dominant fashion this weekend.
They beat Evil Geniuses 3-0 in the grand final to take the $350,000 top prize and continue their stellar run of form in Valorant esports.
Fnatic defeated NRG, Paper Rex and Evil Geniuses in almost perfect form (2-0, 2-0 and 2-1 respectively) in the Japan tournament, before facing EG again in the grand final. Saying that, their games against EG were relatively close (13-8, 13-11, 14-12 in the final).
The Valorant Masters Tokyo win comes just three months after Fnatic’s first major Valorant trophy at VCT Lock In, giving them big back-to-back VCT victories.
The Valorant roster, featuring charismatic Brit, Boaster (UK), Derke (Finland), Alfajer (Turkey), Leo (Sweden), Chronicle (Russia) and sub player kamyk (Poland), have found the magic formula Fnatic have been working towards in Valorant’s first few years, and they look like they’re hungry for even more.
Fnatic have already qualified for Valorant’s top global competition, Valorant Champions 2023, which takes place in August later this year. By winning Masters Tokyo, this means EMEA will get another slot in Valorant Champions.
Fnatic, FUT Esports and Team Liquid (who won VCT EMEA 2023 earlier this month) have already qualified for Champions, and now next month’s EMEA Last Chance Qualifier will allow two teams to progress to Champions, rather than the usual one.
‘We win when we stay positive and have fun’ – Boaster on Valorant Masters Tokyo win
Chronicle said: “It was rough at the start of the map, but we tried to focus how we should come back and play on attack side. Then it went our way, as we expected. I’m really glad we stayed focus and were chill.”
Leo said on the strengths of EMEA as a region: “I think we just practice harder. We put in more hours, I don’t think it showed how strong EU teams are, but I think for Champions it’s gonna be great. We get the extra slot for EMEA and we’ll see [how it goes] at Champs.”
Boaster gave a winner speech in Japanese on stage after the Valorant Masters Tokyo final.
He said (as translated by Emergency_Bug_4061) on the Valorant Competitive Reddit: “Hello, Japan, hello! Hello everyone. I’m so happy to win and to hear your support. Thank you for your support. I love you all. Next time I want to fight more Japanese teams!”
He added in English: “We win when we stay positive and we have fun. [In the third map Bind] if we weren’t having fun… you’re 2-0 up, [you think] you’re gonna win, and we bottled it a little bit. But we came back and attacked, so I’m happy.
“We really appreciate everyone coming today, and cheering for both teams, it was really sick, even when EG was getting a big applause, and just for being awesome!”
Fnatic Boaster on Valorant Masters Tokyo win
Fnatic’s British coach mini said: “I was a bit nervous in the first half of Bind, but I’m usually very calm, that’s my strength. I’d like to also thank our assistant coach [Russia’s slk], who decided to stay home and help us prepare from home, and to all the backroom staff and fans. The Japanese fans have been amazing, so thank you very much.”
Evil Geniuses, meanwhile, tweeted about being proud of what they showed the world and said their Champions run starts here.
With that, this concludes our Valorant Masters Tokyo grand final report. Us at Esports News UK will of course be back with more Valorant esports news in the future.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
