NRG Victor Weighs In On VCT Americas League System and the Pressure To Win
- NRG Victor’s thoughts on the VCT Americas League system.
- How hard work shapes the culture at NRG VALORANT.
- Victor talks about NRG’s loss to Evil Geniuses in the VCT Americas League playoffs.
- How Victor plans to go into tomorrow’s match for a spot at VCT Masters Tokyo.
Many were not expecting NRG to fall into the VCT Americas League Lower Bracket as quickly as they did. Heading into their series against Evil Geniuses, many viewed NRG as one of the favorites to qualify for VCT Masters Tokyo and represent the Americas League on the international stage.
Instead, they found themselves playing today against Furia to keep their hopes of playing at VCT Masters Tokyo alive after their loss to Evil Geniuses.
NRG Victor’s thoughts on VCT Americas League system
VCT 2023 has truly been like no other season of competitive VALORANT. If you make top three in the VCT Americas League, you are guaranteed a spot at both of VALORANT’s international LAN events. As a result, the pressure of the VCT Americas League has made it difficult to think about anything but VALORANT for NRG player Victor “Victor” Wong.
“These regular-season best-of-threes and playoff matches are probably the most important set of games if you want to play on the international stage,” Victor said. “Not only do these matches qualify you for Tokyo, but you also make it to Champs which is a flawed system.”
This has resulted in a lot of stress to put in the work right now or risk missing out on the international VALORANT events in 2023.
“Very rarely am I able to turn my brain off from VALORANT,” Victor said. “It’s hard to think about anything else, especially after our slow start to the season which has caused a lot of stress this season.”
He shared the rigorous schedule outlined for NRG in order to reverse this slow 1-3 start to the VCT Americas League and seldom takes any days off because of how strong their desire to win is.
“I think we have gotten like one off day every three weeks or something like that,” Victor said. “We have just been playing nonstop during this entire season.”
How hard work shapes the NRG culture
Yet, despite this rigorous schedule and intense pressure placed on both himself and the NRG players, this type of system is something that slots into their “nature” as a team.
“We are always working because that is the nature of our team,” Victor said. “That mindset towards practice is the nature of our team and has been our thing for years.”
He remembered his initial thoughts following NRG’s loss to Evil Geniuses in the VCT Americas League playoffs and how hard he took the loss. For nearly an entire day, multiple thoughts of what he could have done differently against Evil Geniuses peeked into his mind.
It wasn’t until today’s 2-0 victory over Furia that Victor could feel some ease from their loss to Evil Geniuses.
“Today’s match against Furia was a confidence boost going into our next match,” Victor said. “We really needed a win like that to ease some mental stress from our EG match.”
Still, the “job is not done” for Victor and the rest of NRGas they still have one more match before they can solidify their spot at VCT Masters Tokyo.
“The win is great and all, but we still have to remember that there is one more match before we can qualify for Tokyo,” Victor said. “This win won’t mean anything if we don’t win the next game.”
NRG’s match against the winner of the Cloud9 vs Leviatan matchup will take place tomorrow at 5pm PT after the Upper Bracket Final between Evil Geniuses and LOUD.
Sage got his start in esports as a volunteer writer in 2016 for esports organization, Dignitas. Since then, he has continued to work on his craft as a journalist and reporter for a number of established esports publications, such as esports.gg, Unikrn, Akshon Esports, Howla, The Player’s Lobby, Nerd Street Gamers, and most recently Dot Esports. Now, as a member of Esports Illustrated’s content team, Sage’s primary duties are centered around creating groundbreaking written and video content about the esports industry that impacts the community in a meaningful way. Sage graduated from Rutgers University with a Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology and Informatics. There, he was a member of the Rutgers Esports Executive Board, both as the head of the fighting game community and a videographer/photographer for the Content team.