ANGE1 lays out a warning after VCT win: ‘Our Yoru is better’

Just a matter of days into the VALORANT Champions Tour 2024 campaign and Natus Vincere has already made an imprint on the global esports meta, having released Ardis "ardiis" Svarenieks into a role of controlled chaos.

Under the leadership of Kyrylo "ANGE1" Karasov, NA'VI has gotten off to a flying start with wins over BBL and Team Liquid, and in both matches their Breeze composition has drawn the attention of the world.

Following their latest win, ANGE1 has issued a warning, and a challenge, to the rest of the VCT, as their new Yoru-heavy comp is "better" than anyone who dares to take them on.

It's yoru problem, now

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In their season opener against BBL, NA'VI opted to throw Ardiis on Yoru, a composition that raised eyebrows, especially as the Latvian-Liverpudlian was making his comeback to Europe.

After a dominant 28/12 KD performance in a blistering 13-6 dismantlement of BBL, Ardiis was then matched by Team Liquid who allowed his playground Breeze slip through the veto net, this time opting to match the agent pick by putting fellow Brit Georgio "Keiko" Sanassy on Yoru.

But this didn't stop him either.

"The way Liquid played Yoru was bad. That's all I can say without going deep into strats," said ANGE1 in a post-match interview with GGRecon.

The Ardiis Yoru combination fed another 23 kills for NA'VI in another confident 13-7 win on Breeze, tying up the fixture 2-0, while Liquid's Keiko only managed a mere eight kills in reply.

"We tried a lot of compositions during pre-season and I'll be honest with you, we practised for three months on the breeze without the corridor, right?" ANGE1 continued, diving into how the roster settled on this agent line-up that has revolutionised Breeze gameplay.

"But a few weeks before the tournament, Riot decided to switch it back, and we decided to give this comp, another chance."

"The Omen comp feels much more comfortable with Corridor, because you have extra smokes to put pressure on and to do splits, and Yoru felt nice with this." 

So how do you stop them? That's the job of anyone lining up to play NA'VI in the VCT EMEA Kick-Off, and onwards, yet it doesn't seem to be a question easily answered. Do you find a composition stronger? Or do you match Yoru for Yoru and out-Ardiis Ardiis and hope not to end up like Team Liquid?

Well, ANGE1 wants the latter, issuing a damning warning of "I hope so. I hope so. I'm 100 per cent sure that our Yoru is better."

Laying down the road to Madrid, agent by agent

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Focus now shifts forward for Natus Vincere, as ANGE1 and co. begin to eye up qualification for Madrid Masters and beyond, and that means avoiding the same mistakes that teams made last year by burning out all of their agent compositions early.

"My plan for this year is to finalize the agent picks and the priorities on the maps during this Madrid qualifiers and hopefully Madrid itself," ANGE1 said. "This is the goal."

"We've played half a year online, and it's a completely different speed of the game compared to LAN, so we'll figure out it throughout this tournament."

The difference between LAN and online is also affecting to agent pool, as ANGE1 notes characters like Skye are "weak".

"The game is slower, much slower. You can, on average, add 20 or 30 seconds to each round. The fact Skye doesn't have flashes recharged anymore is a big and I see a lot of teams still making these mistakes, especially playing with her as a sole initiator, which doesn't allow them to be flexible on attack," he added.

But for NA'VI, after netting a 2-0 start, securing Playoffs status, and edging just one more win away from a seat to Madrid, "everything looks good."