For nearly a year, Vision Strikers were the most dominant team in South Korean VALORANT. From their very first competition in June of 2020, the team never skipped a beat, racking up an unprecedented 102-match win streak and taking first place in twenty straight competitions. They became known worldwide for their methodical plays and the way they were always able to control the flow of the game.
“When Vision Strikers really started to make a name for themselves, they became the team to watch globally for strategy in particular,” Seth “Achilios” King, a VALORANT caster, said. “Especially early days, they were one of the first teams that really started running these crazy set execution plays on various map types. They’re constantly on the same page. The moments where they look lost are few and far between.”
For a long time, Vision Strikers seemed untouchable. That is until, of course, their self-professed streamer team F4Q cut short their win streak during VALORANT Champions Tour Stage 2 Challengers. During that same tournament, Vision Strikers were knocked out in semifinals by NUTURN Gaming, who went on to qualify for Masters Reykjavík. It was the one blemish on Vision Strikers’ perfect record, and the team’s communications manager, John “Miryu” Ryu remembered mixed emotions when it was all over.
“Termi, our head coach, accepted the loss quickly, as he knew we were having a less-than-average performance heading into Stage 2,” Miryu said. “On the other hand, the players obviously took the loss more personally. If anything, I think the taste of defeat for the first time in their VALORANT careers motivated them to practice even harder as they prepared for Stage 3.”
It was a tough blow made worse by their failure to qualify for the first international VALORANT competition, but the team rallied back and defeated old rival F4Q in the Stage 3 Challengers final. Both teams have now qualified for VCT Stage 3 Masters and will represent Korea in Berlin — though this doesn’t mean you should expect the same thing from them. They are, according to Achilios, “polar opposites.” Where F4Q plays fast and loose, Vision Strikers are much more calculated.
“Vision Strikers will run the clock down to the very last second before they execute on a site, before there’s even been a bullet fired,” Achilios said. “They’ll play extremely slow if they feel like that’s what they need to do.”
