AUTHOR: CHRIS "BEARLIGHT" LEE / @BEARLIGHTCASTS
The Road to Radiant can be extremely long and tedious, especially if time is not found to put into the grind. Sometimes the road to esports scholarship opportunities can feel the same way. Luckily for students, Stay Plugged In weekly tournaments allow players to keep on a competitive grind in game, all while staying in the watching eyes of college recruiters simultaneously. Our Valorant competitors Wake Forest and NC State Red just came off a long and productive weekend at the JCC Campus Series this past weekend, and still found the time to join us for the bracket this past Wednesday. They were looking to build off of their top 4 finishes, especially NC State who dropped the best-of-3 Final, but had some pretty great moments throughout the event. Check out how they shaped up against the online competition in this week's Road to Radiant breakdown.
SEMIFINALS - JITTERBUGS 13, NCSU RED 2
After dropping to Insomniacs in the Finals of JCC, the entire Insomniacs roster said that they would only have a chance against NC State as long as they just "don't pick Ascent". They had found out pretty quickly that NC State had an effective strategy at the map having been bested by them 2-13 in the Group Stage last weekend. This time around for NC State, they just couldn't get anything going.
RANGERJ showed us how exceptional his fragging ability is at JCC, earning top fragging rights by finding 25 or more kills in two of the three Finals maps played as Fade. This time as Fade on Ascent, Jitterbugs had the solution. ZRONA as Chamber was constantly looming on the back lines, ready to use an Operator and the Tour de Force in tandem as the team's economy permitted. Finishing 17/8/1 was a very solid showing for Z, though one teammate was able to best it. SMRTY took some time off to focus on school related events, and his first two weeks back served as a warmup. It's tough to just jump back into a game like Valorant and pick up where you left off. It took some, but SMRTY returns in the Semifinal with an incredible 26/9/10 KDA with 4 first bloods to lead the team to another Finals appearance.
SEMIFINALS - WAKE FOREST 13, BALD LADIES 6
A clever play off of the former team named "Bald Babies" we saw in the Summer Series, the all female roster "Bald Ladies" rolled into Road to Radiant on Wednesday. Made up of KRYA, SUNBERRIES, SHAYEKENNO, EMMYBEE, and JULIA, Bald Ladies were able to make some noise in their debut here as a squad.
They pushed round-for-round with Wake Forest, an established college program, and the same team that placed top 4 at JCC. JULIA took advantage of the lack of intel agents chosen by their opponent's. Her Sova play allowed her team to play with more confidence, and limit what Wake was able to do with their Viper. She also finished with a 1.28 KDA too, matching teammate KRYA with 13 kills. It took a 30 kill performance by Summer Series star CONRAD to take them out of the equation. RYLES of Wake Forest also added 8 assists as KAY/O, much needed when selecting an agent comp with one initiator that is non-intel gathering. Their win would lead to Jitterbugs vs Wake Forest playing against each other in the Finals for the very first time.
FINALS - JITTERBUGS 13, WAKE FOREST 6
Wake Forest has seen and been defeated by Jitterbugs in the past, but they've never gotten to play the past champions in an opportunity to win the title. Despite the 3rd-4th place finish at the most recent event, they looked strong against the eventual event winners, Insomniacs. It was a real possibility that in this moment Wake Forest could pull the upset and win their first Road to Radiant.
The difference in this tilt was that the Jitterbugs were just coming off a decisive win over NC State at the same map, Ascent. SMRTY definitely stood in the way in this one too. He is back to his full final form, racking up a 3.0 KDA in the Finals with just 8 deaths total. SOUP played a top-tier game as well on Omen with a 20/10/14 KDA, and the team found 39 assists between him, SIMPLYQ101 and PLEX (13 and 12 assists between the last two respectively). In this Finals performance, Jitterbugs' use of utility was the most efficient I've ever seen in a Stay Plugged In event. Incredible work in their Road to Radiant title.
WINNERS & FINAL THOUGHTS
Congratulations to Jitterbugs for their Week 31 title! Not mentioned above is the fact that they named themselves "Jitterbugs 19.0", and the way they played was pretty much indicative of the 19th version, both in roster moves and in improvement. SMRTY is your MVP this week with a new Road to Radiant record of a 3.529 KDA (in at least two maps played).
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