Team Liquid’s in game leader (IGL), Ayaz ‘nAts’ Akhmetshin has finally arrived at Valorant Masters Toronto.
And his timing couldn’t be much better, as defeat in their next series will spell elimination from the tournament for Team Liquid.
After losing to Bilibili Gaming (BLG), Liquid now have to deal with Wolves Esports in Round 2 on Tuesday, June 10th.
There were fears that nAts could miss Valorant Masters Toronto entirely due to visa issues.
However, the Russian confirmed on X (formerly Twitter) that he has received his visa and was immediately heading to Canada.
Without him, Team Liquid enlisted the help of Canadian pro Erik ‘penny’ Penny to compete in front of a home crowd.
With only a few days of practice together, Team Liquid performed surprisingly well against China’s second seeds BLG.
It was an entertaining series that was closer than most expected. But after some back and forth, BLG ultimately won 2-1.
This was a big step up for penny competing at this level of event for the first time but he excelled.
The Canadian starred in Liquid’s victory on Haven, helping the team win 16-14 in overtime with a 30-18 KD on Phoenix.
Speaking in the post-match conference, penny said he felt comfortable playing at the event:
“This might sound a bit crazy to say, but… I honestly think that playing in Tier 2 with how it is, is honestly much harder than playing in a Tier 1 system with Tier 1 coaching staff.
“When you have an idea of how to play the game, you have the game plans, the anti-strat, all this stuff makes the game a lot easier.
“And in Challengers, everything is completely random. Teams are playing twelve different playstyles, everyone has full confidence, and… no care, honestly.
“Like, you’ve probably seen some of the drama that happened with Tier 2. There’s not a lot of people with, like, passion or care for the game. Everyone’s playing however they want. They don’t care.”
In my seven years of esports writing, I’ve introuduced esports coverage to newspapers, interviewed some of the biggest names in the industry, and driven viewers mad with the puns in my YouTube scripts. I’m most proud of the latter.
