Gambit’s Redgar expects tough Valorant Champions: “Teams now know we are not just scrim gods”

Gambit’s in-game leader Igor ‘Redgar’ Vlasov said that he is anticipating a tough test at Valorant Champions following their success at the VCT Masters Berlin event. 

There is an air of vulnerability about Gambit heading into Valorant Champions.

The CIS giants lived off their dark horse reputation at the VCT Stage 3 Masters in Berlin, where they were the surprise champions following an unbeaten playoff run.

But since then, things have not been going smoothly for Gambit. They crashed out of Red Bull Home Ground #2 in the quarter-finals after a 2-0 defeat to Acend, who ran out 13-0 winners on Bind. And in a recent interview, team coach Andrey ‘Engh’ Sholokhov revealed that he was “not very happy” with the preparation for Valorant Champions.

Redgar, Gambit’s in-game leader, admitted that the defeat in the Red Bull tournament was a wake-up call for the team.

“Personally, losing always gives you motivation because it shows the weakest points in your strategy or in your individual performances,” he told reporters at a press conference. “It’s always proof that you have to raise your game and perform better the next time.

“We have been practicing much more than we were before that loss.

“I think he [Engh] wasn’t satisfied with our results when we were in the middle of our bootcamp. But we found the solution to raise our spirits. We reset, and our preparation [since then] has been really good.

“I think we are much better now than during the bootcamp. Day after day, we are becoming much better.”

Tough road ahead

Gambit will begin their Valorant Champions campaign on December 2 against Team Secret from the Philippines. They are widely expected to cruise through their group, which also contains Team Vikings (Brazil) and Crazy Raccoon (Japan).

But after that, it’s a completely different game. Competition will heat up, and Gambit will be the team to beat after their recent success.

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Redgar said that he expects opponents to be much better prepared for his team than they were at the VCT Masters event, when Gambit were playing at “60 percent of their potential”.

“I think we are not far off from that percentage,” Redgar said. “Maybe we have improved about 2 or 3 percent.

“I guess it will be harder now because, at VCT Masters, teams didn’t expect us to go that far and show that kind of performance.

“They now know that we are not scrim gods only, we are official gods too [laughs]. We have been practicing much better now. I think that, by the end of the tournament, we will be much better.”