In Round 22 of the final map of Luminosity Gaming’s VALORANT Champions Tour Challengers match against 100 Thieves, Kaleb “moose” Jayne found himself in another 1v1 clutch situation. On Cypher, he had to take down 100 Thieves’ Peter “Asuna” Mazuryk and diffuse the spike to put his team in a position to close out the series on Breeze.
In Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, moose was known as a clutch player but, in this series, he didn’t put up the best performance and it weighed on his mind in this scenario.
“God I played so bad the first two maps. I got to pull my team up right here,” he said recalling the 1v1. “I’ve got to do something for them.”
Moose peeked Asuna, who was hiding behind the Attackers side box on the A site, and quickly sprayed down the 100 Thieves Duelist before he could do the same. Moose said that he and the entire team popped off in voice comms as he diffused the spike to bring Luminosity to match point.
Luminosity would go on to win the map and series in overtime 14-12 and, while the win was a weight off of the team’s shoulders, it was harder than it needed to be. This is a symptom of their ongoing issues in VCT matches according to the team’s in-game-leader Will “dazzLe” Loafman.
“We have a thing where we just beat ourselves towards the end of the game,” dazzLe said. “Like when it gets closer, if we had a couple around lead, and then we start losing it. We just do the thing where you play not to lose instead of playing to win.”
The team currently sits at 2-1 in Group A. All they need is a win against Cloud9 or XSET in the following weeks for a spot in the playoff stage. Luminosity, and the rest of the teams in NA VCT, have a week between each match to study their opponent and make up strategies. But, rather than study other teams, the newly put-together squad have preferred to work on themselves.
“It’s like not even really two months of us actually playing together,” dazzLe said. “So we just gotta keep building on our base.”
That base mainly consists of new players Brandon Michael “bdog” Sanders and Adam “mada” Pampuch. The two young guns each had great individual maps in the series against 100T, with mada top fragging on Split as Raze and bdog doing the same on Breeze as Jett.
According to moose, the team’s synergy and compositions aren’t set yet. They are still trying things so out, so the two newer Luminosity players might get a new look come Weeks 4 and 5.
“We’re still trying new comps, new maps and trying to keep switching things up,” moose said. “So I don’t think you’ll see the same LG saw you saw [Sunday] in the last game of the tournament.”
This seems to be the approach for most teams as the meta of the league changes with patches and more in-depth observation of other squads at the event. As teams continue to grow and figure each other out, the competition will get more tough for teams already near the bottom of the table.
Fans will get a chance to see Luminosity’s new look in Week 4 of VCT competition against Cloud9 on Saturday.
[Disclosure: Luminosity Gaming is a subsidiary of Enthusiast Gaming, which owns and operates Upcomer.]
