LA-based 100 Thieves brings home Red Bull Home Ground

14 December 2022

From December 9th to December 11th, 2022, the best professional Valorant players from Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Northern America gathered in the city of Manchester, in North West England, for the epic final act of the Valorant season. For the third time, the Red Bull Home Ground as organised to end the season in style and infamous entertainment venue Victoria Warehouse was chosen as the ideal scene for it. It was the first time in the event’s history that teams from the Americas were eligible to enter and one of them made an immediate impact by winning the whole thing.

100 Thieves goes unbeaten

It was North American esports organisation 100 Thieves that took home the Red Bull home Ground 2022 title after an impressive unbeaten run. The American team, consisting of Peter “Asuna” Mazuryk, Derrek “Derrek” Ha, Brenden “stellar” McGrath, Matthew “Cryocells” Panganiban and Sean “bang” Bezerra, was joined in Group B by Dutch side Team Liquid, Spanish side Team Heretics and Turkish team FUT Esports, but none of them managed to put a dent into 100T’s ambitions.

First up for 100 Thieves was Team Heretics, who actually managed to win the first game on Ascent (9-13) before losing the two subsequent maps Haven and Fracture with identical scores. The second group game against Team Liquid progressed in a very similar fashion, with 100T winning game one on Haven before losing game two on Ascent and then bringing home the second victory in a row by winning Breeze (11-13). The final group game ended up being the most straightforward one for 100 Thieves, as they disposed of FUT rather easily (13-10 and 13-6 victories on Haven and Bind, respectively).

Much of the same during play-offs

After a dominant group phase, 100 Thieves was up against Team Vitality, the only team from the EMEA region that managed to make it out of the groups. They started their semi-final decently, losing the first map, Pearl, by just two points (14-12), but they could not keep it up. 100T swept up Fracture after that (13-5) with qualification for the Grand Final as a result. It turned out to be an entirely North American final, as Santa Monica-based Cloud9 made it through to the final as well by beating Team Liquid in the quarterfinals and Argentine organisation KRÜ Esports in the semi-finals.

Contrary to 100T, KRÜ did get a taste of defeat on their way to the final. In Group A, the Argentinians lost against both Vitality (16-14, 13-5) and Cloud9 (7-13, 3-13), so it was no surprise that 100 Thieves kicked off the Grand Final as major favourites. This also quickly became apparent once the game got underway, as 100T dominated C9 for most of the final. On map one, Bind, they won by a narrow 3-point difference (13-10), followed by victory on Fracture (13-9). Icebox was the third map and the final one as well, as 100T finished their dominant Red Bull Home Ground display in style with a crushing 13-3 victory, crowning themselves as new champions in the process.

Image credit: 100 Thieves / Red Bull Home Ground