Version1 (V1) may have gone undefeated during the 2022 VCT Challengers group stage, but Luminosity Gaming (LG) have stepped up and pulled the breaks on V1's momentum in the quarterfinals of playoffs. LG were the fourth ranked team out of Group A, and were by all counts, unexpected to win against V1, arguably considered the second best team in NA's VALORANT scene at the moment. Yet after a hard-fought three-game series, including yet another overtime map, Luminosity emerged victorious — LG Kaleb “moose” Jayne tells us how it all unfolded in an interview with ClutchPoints.

From the get-go, the map picks were already a sign of surprises to come. For Luminosity, Ascent had been their permaban in past games. But this time around, they shook it up by banning Haven.

“We decided to ban Haven because in our last two Haven matches, we only got a combined two rounds [out of] 24 CT (defender) rounds,” moose explained. “We thought it'd be good to switch it up.”

Version1 on their part also made a bold move to ban Haven instead of Bind, which LG have been good on. “We didn't expect to be playing Bind, we seriously thought they were going to ban it. Once we saw it was open, we just knew we had to pick it. We were really happy with that,” moose shared.

That pick definitely paid dividends as LG struck first in the series. They won Bind, 13-10, after a great defensive half where they went 8-3 over V1. Coming off that win and going into their opponents' map pick, moose highlighted that the team just went in with confidence. They knew what they could do and had prepped well for the matchup.

Even on Ascent, V1 didn't dominate. Although they eventually took the victory, Luminosity had kept it close, and many of the rounds had devolved into chaos, with V1 relying on individuals showing up in the clutch than any clean strategic setups. Had a couple of close rounds swung the other way, LG could have taken the series, 2-0. As moose pointed out, “We made a lot of mistakes on Ascent, way more than the other two maps. If we didn't make those small mistakes, we would've closed it out, 2-0.”

For the decider map, V1 on paper also had the advantage, as they have a 100 percent win rate so far on that map. Moose said LG was aware of this and “it was going to be a tough match,” but that they were still “confident and just played our own game.”

The first half, though, didn't go Luminosity's way. V1 switched up their setups a lot and so moose and team had to adapt a lot from round to round. That led V1 to an 8-4 advantage at the half, but switching sides, LG did a lot better on offense.

“[On Cypher], I was just getting full B main info and pushing pretty much every round, and we stacked four on the other side. But [V1] had really good executes and were getting the kills,” moose recalled. “Later in the [match], we stopped playing so scared and just focused on our own game. We stopped letting them bully us and it ended up working out.”

Moose himself had a clutch play early on, finding himself in a 1v1 with zander's Brimstone. He decided to go for the defuse but quickly pulled out his gun to secure the frag—putting Luminosity on the board as their first round win on Fracture. In the second half, all members of the team stepped up during different rounds.

Gradually, they cut down V1's lead, inching to 8-9, in a round where LG decided to go in slow. This probably prompted V1 to be a little impatient in their rotation, giving Luminosity a key round win. DazzLe then had a huge round to put even up the series at 10-10, with Luminosity rotating quickly after they saw the Sage resurrect used. Trading blows, the squad headed into overtime, but off the back of massive kills from TiGG and bdog, LG found their sweet victory, making a statement to take down V1, 15-13.

For moose and LG, the key has always been to remain confident. Even though they had gone into the match as the underdogs, the squad stood their ground and played their game. Now advancing into the semifinals of VCT Challengers playoffs, Luminosity will again look to show that they are a side who can compete with the best in NA, with their sights set on going all the way to the end.