AUTHOR: CHRIS "BEARLIGHT" LEE / @BEARLIGHTCASTS
Another week of Road to Radiant, another chance for collegiate connections and scholarship opportunities for our Stay Plugged In Valorant recruits. It's tough to wrap our minds around how quickly we reached Week 35, but here we are, still receiving the same incredible entertaining matches and story lines we've gotten since it's launch in January. This week, Guardian Esports breaks the top 4 for the very first time, and Jitterbugs, Reyhand Gaming, and LegsUp fill in the other spots as usual. Check out the details below in this week's BearLight breakdown.
BREAKDOWN & RESULTS
Credit Guardian Esports for their first appearance in the Final Four after a dominant 13-0 performance a round prior. However, unfortunately for them, they would see the run end there in the Semifinals. Jitterbugs did what the Jitterbugs do, and allowed SMRTY (Raze) to get to work with a 20/8/9 KDA. We do need to shout out WURT (Jett) for squaring up in the frag department, and giving Guardian Esports a chance in rounds, but Jitterbugs would advance with a (13-4) win.
Reyhand Gaming and LegsUp kept it close in their Semifinals tilt. Both teams are experienced in the late rounds of Road to Radiant and were not ready to wait another week for a chance at the title. For Reyhand, they certainly looked like the defending champions here, fighting off SAYLOR (Astra) of LegsUp's 27/19/9 KDA to edge them out (13-11) and head to the finals to face off with Jitterbugs. SLIGHTLY and REDI of Reyhand Gaming played incredibly well in the match, both above 20 kills at it's conclusion.
One week after falling short of a Finals appearance for the first time in seven weeks, Jitterbugs would be required to defeat the reigning champs in Reyhand Gaming to re-earn their title. It wasn't easy, but they were able to get the job done with a (13-11) win on Bind. SMRTY bested his own record here. In a Final's match that didn't need extra rounds to finish, he put up 36 KILLS against a team that most teams coward against. That performance brought Smrty to an insane 56/24/15 KDA (or 2.958 KDA ratio) on the night, earning him the MVP title for the week, and leading his team to the Week 35 Road to Radiant title.
To sign up your team for next week's Road to Radiant, you can find the registration on our events page.