Crime City gets outplayed by QoR!

Crime City had an excellent series against BTR Fanclub, but literally on the same day, they had to play against another excellent opponent, QoR, in another Bo3 to have a chance at advance to the next round on the Upper Brackets of the NA Challengers Qualifiers. QoR defeated Resonate overwhelmingly and was ready for their next opponent, Crime City, who lost their map pick 13–9, which was Lotus. Given that the games were back-to-back, make sense that they may have used the same composition in the next match. Double duelist compositions are risky decisions, and you have to optimize them to the maximum to succeed most of the times. QoR exploited that weakness on the map of Lotus by using a standard composition, two controllers and a lot of utilities to stop an aggressive push from Crime City. QoR did the same setup with Killjoy, Viper’s wall, and always used utilities to stop any push from A door or A tree, in 90% of the rounds on defense. Crime City couldn’t identify an effective counter, as many times, when they managed to get to the site, QoR’s team bombarded them with utilities and ended up winning many of the rounds.

From my point of view, Crime City should have made two adjustments to counter QoR and at least have won more rounds on attack, since on defense, Crime City was better than their attacker side.

Crime City adjustments could do:

1. Using Reyna and Raze, enabled by Gekko, to win areas aggressively and overwhelm the defense with a lot of utility. The C site is usually the weak point of the Lotus map and tends to be the easiest site to win. After planting the spike, enable the duelists to win CT and site link areas with Omen and Gekko. If QoR adjusts to this type of strategy and begins to split the retake from the main, Crime City plays from the back site and use utilities for delays QoR’s entry. This adjustment will cause QoR to have to rotate Raze to the C site, as it would be their weaker site.

We start the round with a 4–1–0 formation, heading towards C. Gekko enables Reyna and Raze.

Sova and Omen have to fall back and play defensively on the site.

Sova and Omen have a very important decision, to play fighting for the site with utility. They only have Omen’s blind to stop the rush. Gekko flashes in conjunction with Reyna and Raze throws the grenade to clear that area.

QoR only has the option to play the retake.

Crime City needs to be aggressive to avoid the retake and prevent QoR’s retake positioning.

2. If the first adjustment works, Crime City has to use the winning advantage and start playing mind games with QoR, forcing KJ to move from the site or play more from the back site. Changing their setup and moving other players to different sites to strengthen the weak site. While doing this, we use Reyna as a lurker and look for entry frags on the opposite site to the team. This way, we can make fakes or even force players into anti-lurk zones.

For the second map Ascent, the VOD wasn’t complete, and I couldn’t do a full analysis or give my opinion of the match. However, from what I could see, both teams played mirror and classic compositions for the map of Ascent: Jett, Kayo, Omen, Sova, and KJ. Crime City started strong on the defensive side of Ascent and finished the defense side 7–5, but their attack didn’t look the same way, and QoR managed to come back, winning 13–10.

From QoR attack statistics, we can see that the duelist from QoR stood out from the rest, and their support teammates enabled Jett to make aggressive plays. Personally, I believe that the Ascent map needs a rework or a change in the meta because we’ve been playing with the same meta since Kayo was introduced as an agent. This causes the match to be decided more by details than by proposing tactical concepts.

Crime City has a bright future; it will be interesting to see them again next year and witness their progression. Some NA Challengers teams should keep an eye on this new talent and give them the opportunity. Regarding QoR, you can see the preparation that this team has behind it, with its staff, players, and organization. When two teams are similar in firepower, the match is decided by tactical aspects, and Crime City was outplayed in tactical concepts.

If for some reason you want to learn a bit about an anti-meta composition, a masterclass from an IGL, and play in a different way on this map, I leave you this VOD of Loud vs Leviathan. What Loud showed is a masterclass on how to use synergy and utility in an impressive way and outplay one of the best duelists of the Valorant right now. Thanks for reading!