Valorant isn’t an easy game, and it’s even harder to ace the enemy team knowing you’ll most-likely be traded at some point in the round – especially if you’re a pro. However, OpTic Gaming star Austin ‘crashies’ Roberts managed the feat during the team’s Valorant Champions 2022 opener against BOOM Esports, and it was perhaps the freest (and funniest) ace he’ll ever get in his career.
While playing Defender side on Fracture – if you need to reacquaint yourself with its callouts then check out our Valorant maps guide – crashies is initially posted up in Tower, before pushing out into Arcade as Jimmy ‘Marved’ Nguyen mirrors his movement towards Tree.
At this point, David ‘tehbotoL’ Monangin has bought BOOM space in A Main using his (E) Fault Line, pushing Victor ‘Victor’ Wong back, though BOOM doesn’t push up due to the Brimstone smoke, Neon concussions, oh, and the KAY/O knife that crashies launched across the map at the beginning of the round that has most of the team suppressed – lineup larry.
By the time BOOM is in a position to restart its attack, Jaccob ‘yay’ Whiteaker and Marved have their eyes firmly set on the enemy spawn. Meanwhile, crashies has full control of Bridge, and he knows it’s unlikely that BOOM will have someone in Dish due to the Chamber trap – though of course a smoke off is always a possibility. Fortunately, Pujan ‘FNS’ Mehta is listening out for it on A Site, and proceeds to hop up and fully clear it, though by this point BOOM has already cemented its fate.
With no signs of re-aggression into A Main, and OpTic maintaining full control of the rest of the map, there remains one option for BOOM: send it over the zipline. Sadly for BOOM, the sheer amount of information OpTic has accrued throughout the round means it’s all too easy to read the play, and crashies mercilessly taps away at the train of BOOM players one by one with a big old grin on his face.
Taking to Twitter after OpTic secured its 2-1 victory over BOOM, crashies jokes that it is “the best ace of my career!”
Of course, the round was finished by BOOM’s players falling into crashies’ Valorant crosshair, but it’s a great reminder that, while on your Valorant ranks grind, pushing out and taking space when Defender side is a key tenet of playing Fracture well – the map is, after all, built for pincering opponents regardless of where your team begins on the map.