Three Turkish teams will represent the country in the VCT 2021 EMEA Stage 3 Playoffs. Though they fell short last time, they will now bring even more firepower to bear than before.
SuperMassive Blaze
With the start of VCT 2021 EMEA Stage 3, Turkey had a new challenger in the scene. Two prominent Turkish esports teams, SuperMassive Esports, and Blaze Esports, joined forces and this Valorant team was born through this alliance. The new superteam features First Strike Europe champion Melih “pAura” Karaduran in the IGL role, one of the best support players in the country Mehmet “Turko” Özen, Turkey CS:GO scene’s most talented player Baran “Izzy” Yılmaz, the 17-year old wonderkid Eren “Brave “ Kasırga and BBL Esports’ ex-superstar Batuhan “russ” Malgaç.
There was one big problem though: the roster had only twenty days to practice for the VCT 2021 EMEA Stage 3 Challengers 1 qualifiers. You could see the lack of chemistry in the early days of the tournament. Despite losing their first game in the closed qualifier, SuperMassive Blaze managed to push themselves to the main event. It was a tough affair: after getting upset against Oxygen Esports, SuperMassive Blaze had to climb from the lower bracket where they defeated OtherSide Esports, Fire Flux Esports, and Futbolist. The grand final of Challengers 1 was a rematch against Oxygen Esports, and now it was a very different version of SuperMassive Blaze who took down Oxygen with a 3-1 in the grand final to grab the first seed for the EMEA Stage 3 Playoffs.
Winning Challengers 1 as a twenty-day-old team is pretty impressive. There are two big reasons behind this: the team’s enormous firepower and the recent release of patch 3.0. The update changed a lot in the game and this gave advantages to newly established teams since it evened out the playing field in terms of cohesion. SuperMassive Blaze benefited from it, relied on their individual skills, played fast-paced attacks, and won the tournament.
Following Challengers 1, SuperMassive Blaze acquired former Team Heretics coach Tanishq “Tanizhq” Sabharwal to develop their game strategies. When you consider that they had an extra month to practice with Tanizhq, it wouldn’t be a surprise if Turkey’s first seed upset their opponents and qualify for the Berlin Masters.
Oxygen Esports
Oxygen Esports are coming to tie up loose ends and now they’re stronger than before. Turkey’s second seed was arguably the best team in the VCT 2021 EMEA Challengers 1 not dropping a single map point in the main event against Fire Flux Esports, SuperMassive Blaze, and Futbolist until the grand final. With decent game plans and the players stepping up, Oxygen Esports succeeded in popping their opponents’ bubbles.
After losing important firepower with the departure of Mehmet “Turko” Özen to SuperMassive Blaze, everybody expected Oxygen Esports to struggle in gun duels. However, the team’s IGL Muhammed “m1tez” Tezcan’s and Göktuğ “XiSTOU” Canciğer’s insane performances throughout the tournament alongside the perfect addition of Cihan “Unity” Seferoğlu straightened out all the question marks.
There are different playing styles and metagames in Valorant. While some teams try to perform exactly those styles, some other teams create other dimensions to play better. Oxygen Esports is one of those teams that prefer to sew dresses instead of wearing what is made. It’s not that Oxygen Esports don’t have any weaknesses: the team’s previous habit of losing concentration during rounds still continues, but less so than before. If they manage to solve this issue and keep their individual forms, Oxygen can challenge the other participants, with perhaps the exception of Acend.
Fire Flux Esports
Like SuperMassive Blaze, Fire Flux Esports are another new challenger in Turkey. They have the most European game style among other Turkish teams. Thanks to their in-game leader İbrahim “SouhcNi” Sağır who spent most of his time in European rosters and former honk coach Salah “Salah” Barakat standing behind the squad, Fire Flux Esports have a strong opinion on how to play right against EU representatives. Even though this awareness caused them to struggle to adapt against Turkish team’s aggressive plans during VCT 2021 EMEA Challengers 1 & 2, I believe it’ll help them to perform better in the EMEA Playoffs.
Despite having a roster full of youngsters, Fire Flux Esports can deal with high pressure and are able to stay in the game whatever the result is, grinding out comebacks a couple of times during the qualifiers. If they had one or two more months to practice for the EMEA Playoffs, they would be my favorite among the Turkish teams.
Fire Flux Esports seek the optimum lineup when it comes to agent selection. We had a chance to watch them on every map during Turkish qualifiers and they always came up with small changes which led them to earn a spot in the EMEA Playoffs. Using seven different agent compositions throughout Challengers 2 is proof of how flexible Fire Flux Esports’ players are. If you want to watch some young talented players doing some magic in Valorant, Toprak “lauress” Kaynak and Volkan “sociableEE” Yönal should be on the top of your list.
VCT 2021: EMEA Stage 3 Challengers Playoffs will start on August 12, and this time, Turkish teams look stronger than ever.
