Gen.G enter Valorant esports with NA roster, win T1 Invitational

They announced the acquisition of their Valorant roster mere hours before their tournament debut but Gen.G have found immediate success taking top prize in the T1 Valorant Invitational after beating Team Brax in the Grand Finals. The new team will take home $20,000.

It was their second win of the day over Team Brax after beating them in the upper bracket final, a result that game them a one map advantage in the Grand Final.

The momentum was certainly with them heading into the Bo3 Grand Final. The map choice was Gen.G's - picking Bind - and starting on the attack, they raced into an early lead with Danny "huynh" Huynh looking like a matchwinner with the AWP, and just about any weapon he had in his hand's, to be honest.

Team Brax, who were composed of three T1 Valorant players, rallied with Braxton "Brax" Pierce and Tyler "Ska" Latham in particular impressing. They would force a game three, and it was back to Haven where Gen.G had convincingly beaten Brax in the upper bracket. 

It was a tense final game with Gen.G again taking an early lead before Team Brax fought themselves back into contention, but they did enough to secure the win with Team Brax one round off forcing match point.

The T1 Valorant Invitational saw eight teams battle it out in a double-elimination knockout tournament, it featured a $25,000 prize pool with $20,000 going to the winners and $5,000 going to the runners up. Teams were a mixture of invited esport organisations, former professionals from other esport titles and two qualified teams.

Gen.G's new roster all come from the world of CS:GO with the majority of the all-Canadian squad of Keven "PLAYER1" Champagne, Anthony "gMd" Guimond, Loic "effys" Sauvageau, Danny "huynh" Huynh and Michael " MkaeL" De Luca having competed together as LiViD Gaming. Notable results include second-place at DreamHack Canadian Championship in 2019 and with tournament earnings at approximately $24,000 the decision to move to Valorant could prove to be a fruitful one.

(Picture: Gen.G)

Gen.G COO Andrew Leverette spoke to ESPN about their recruitment strategy in a news cycle that has been dominated by high-profile defections.

"It was less important for us to go with widely known, big names from other games since we expect the meta in VALORANT to change more frequently than other current FPS games. We believe a dominant team could easily fall off with each meta shift if they are not prepared to put in the time  and effort required to adapt," he said. 

"Player adaptability and eagerness to learn were major factors in our search."  

The addition of a Valorant team to Gen.G's stable will mean they now field players and teams in ten different games, including teams in the League of Legends Champions Korea and Overwatch League where they play under the Seoul Dynasty banner.