LOUD Less on Pearl loss: “Whoever figures out how to apply the best game to the map fastest is the one that is going to have the upper hand, and at the end of the day, they were faster than us”

Three Masters level events in 2022. Four matchups between the Brazillian super team LOUD and the Masters Reyjavik Champions OpTic Gaming. The budding international rivalry continues with OpTic getting their third consecutive win over LOUD, sending them to the lower bracket of group B at VALORANT Champions.

After the 2-1 loss, a disgruntled, disappointed Felipe “Less” de Loyola discussed the series in an interview. He wasn’t keen on his individual or team's performance, but he still shows a belief that LOUD can rebound and beat OpTic in the playoffs. 

“I believe my performance was not my best game and their performance (LOUD) was actually very good” said Less.

The 17-year-old took the world by storm at Masters Reyjavik. Placing himself amongst the best overall players at the event with good support and fragging capabilities. Unfortunately, that performance didn’t carry over to Masters Copenhagen, where he was tasked with learning the Chamber role for the team and struggled to transition. 

From a stats perspective, his ACS dropped 30 points between the two events. Granted, LOUD played a minimal amount of games at Copenhagen, but the dropoff was significant enough to note. I asked Less about switching roles and whether that would be the lineup moving forward with Erick “aspas” Santos flexing onto Chamber.

“I’m pretty comfortable with Chamber at least compared to the other agents,” said Less, “so nothing will be changing in my opinion on that.”

Against Japan’s ZETA Division in the opening match of group B, Less top fragged. The performance showed his ability to excel in the Chamber role. In that victory, his style of Chamber was oppressive, keeping the dangerous Operator player Ushida “Laz” Koji contained.

Agents: Killjoy, Chamber

(stats via rib.gg)

However, facing Optic for the fourth time in 2022 and the second time in the last two months, Less struggled to find kills against Jacob “yay” Whittaker. When asked if he agreed with his teammate Matias “saadhak” Delipetro on whether they’ve grown weary of facing OpTic, he responded with confidence about a potential future rematch.

Moreover, Less took the one-sided 13-3 loss on the decider map, Pearl, as a learning experience. It’s not a situation to fret over but to realize it’s their first time playing the map on LAN. The key is improving on the map and learning from their mistakes. Furthermore, he pointed to LOUD’s lack of adjustments. 

“We can agree that the map is very new, so whoever figures out how to apply the best game to the map fastest is the one that is going to have the upper hand, and at the end of the day, they were faster than us and we were lacking some adaptability during this game.”

Now, LOUD falls into the lower bracket in groups for the second straight event. Their resilience will be tested. Few teams have dealt with the strenuous 2022 VCT schedule as directly as LOUD, so I wanted to get a sense of how the team gets along when traveling for most of the year. Plus, if Less is feeling any burnout from the long schedule. 

“So, compared to Denmark, that is the moment where we actually had to deal with being tied with this whole burnout kind of thing because we didn’t have much time to practice. But then, entering Champions, we did have some time to rest, but not all, because we did a boot camp and we tried to prepare as much as we could but we always try to deal with this as my own face and just thinking positive for our next matches.” 

He continued, “we do get along well with each other. The more time goes by the better we get to be, not only in-game but outside the game and we build up as much as we can and we prepared a lot for this Championship and we still have games to play.”

Games to play, indeed. One massive game to keep their Championship hopes alive and reach the playoffs as a second seed. A loss would amount to one of the biggest disappointments of the season after being one win away from Valorant glory in Reyjavik.

When asked about the monumental task of beating ZETA Division, Less stuck to business as usual.

“I believe it’s just going to be another game that we always deal with so there won’t be much difference in how we’re going to prepare. We’re just going to try and bring the best game that we have.”

Less and the LOUD side will play in the decider match against ZETA Division on Wednesday, September 7th at 10 am PST.

Featured image courtesy of Lance Skundrich/Riot Games.