ESPL VALORANT Power Up has so far been nothing less than one of the books. Team Mahi and Global Esports have progressed to the Grand Finals quite cleanly, taking out TempesT and XTZ Esports along the way. We also got to see some interesting new up-and-coming teams like INGLU.FXT, TempesT, and more, but the dominance of the Deadly Top 2 of India continues.
The Matchup: Global Esports vs Team Mahi
Coming into this ESPL Grand Final, Global Esports have a 75% win rate in their last 50~ games, which is an unbelievable stat, and in more recent history they are unbeaten in three months, with their last loss only coming in December of 2020. Global Esports have recently looked like a top-tier team, and they’ve had the results domestically to show that.
Team Mahi is definitely considered one of the top 2 teams in India, but they haven’t had anything remotely close to Global recently. When VALORANT first came out, Team Mahi was extremely dominant as Team Velocity, but they’ve not been the same as the scene has progressed. They’re still one of the best teams in India, and they have an argument for being the best, and that's why this match-up is so well deserved and guaranteed to get you biting your nails.
Head to Head: Team Mahi vs Global Esports
Historical showdowns show Team Mahi are the favorites to win this considerably, but this is in part due to the dominance Team Mahi showed during the early months of VALORANT when most teams hadn’t settled on their perfect rosters and were still figuring out the game.
The Stats show, that Team Mahi is leading with an 8-3 Series Head to Head score. Although the games have definitely been a lot closer than the numbers show, and the gap has recently definitely been closed, with Global Esports taking the last two series.
We can clearly see in the visualization that Global Esports, have slowly been catching up in terms of Map Wins.
The two teams also met in the TEC Invitational Season 2 this week, where Global Esports pulled off an unbelievable reverse sweep from 2-0 down in Maps and took the series and the Title. With this fresh in mind, Team Mahi will be looking to exact the most deserving revenge on Global Esports, and Global will look to remain at the top, with another title, and a 4,00,000 INR to take home!
Players to Watch: Rivalries
The players to watch going into this tournament for me are going to be skillZ and SkRossi on the side of Global Esports, and Antidote and excali on the side of Team Mahi. All of them are established Counter-Strike veterans and have tons of experience as well as fragging power. They’re the tempo deciders for their respective teams, and the boys making the big boy plays.
SkRossi and Antidote are the respective AWPers for each team, if they do pick it up. Going up against each SkRossi edges it, slightly, with both Jett mains going at it. Global Esports is slightly more reliant on SkRossi, than Team Mahi on Antidote.
Another interesting matchup is excali v/s skillZ, out of which both of them are sort of the second stars for their respective teams. Both of them play a variety of agents on different maps, with excali edging it out slightly here. Both players will have to turn up, if they want to see their team going through to the title and the 4,00,000 INR prize pool.
The El Classico
Team Mahi and Global Esports are turning out to be the Derby for the South Asian region so far, and we are looking forward to another iteration of it. Tune in on 28th February, 4 PM IST, to see who takes it this time, and cements their place at the top of VALORANT South Asia. Will it be Global Esports defending their recent top finishes, or Team Mahi redeeming themselves against their arch-nemesis?