"Let's just try it"— Team Heretics' Boo on switching Agents against FunPlus Phoenix at Valorant Champions 2024 (Exclusive)

Valorant Champions 2024 is the final official international event of this season. The sixteen teams from the four franchise leagues will go head-to-head in the Group Stage and then the Playoffs to earn the title of World Champion. Both of these stages will be done in a double-elimination format.

Day 1 had two matches scheduled, one of which was between EMEA's number three seed, Team Heretics and China's number two seed, FunPlus Phoenix. The Bo3 (Best-of-three) series was extremely close and led to two overtimes where Team Heretics just barely closed it out to secure a 2-1 win.

In the post-match conference, Sportskeeda Esports' Sneh Jadhav got the chance to talk to Team Heretics' Boo.

Team Heretics' Boo talks about the role switch on Lotus against FunPlus Phoenix in Valorant Champions 2024

Team Heretics came into Valorant Champions 2024 as one of the favorites. The team's performance during Masters Shanghai and EMEA Stage 1 has solidified its status as an exceptional contender in VCT. In its first match, Team Heretics ended up facing off against FunPlus Phoenix. The squads had clashed before at Masters Shanghai wherein after a gruesome decider map, Team Heretics just barely managed to close out the series.

Their latest matchup also went in the same direction, with Team Heretics closing it out in overtime yet again. In the third map, Lotus, Heretics' IGL (In-game Leader), Boo ended up switching roles with his teammate, Wo0t, wherein he went from playing his usual Controller, Omen to the Initiator, Fade. Given the stakes of the map, the choice to switch Agents seemed like quite the risk.

During the post-match conference of Valorant Champions 2024, Sportskeeda Esports approached Boo to ask him why the switch was made and if it was effective in any way. Here's what he said:

"Honestly I think the main reason was 'why not?'. We just thought about it. I did play Fade last year when we had AvovA and he was the smoker and I enjoyed it a lot. We were like let's just try it. Maybe we will feel more comfortable as a team on the map. We tried and I knew that I am going to like it. Wo0t has played Omen before a lot and yeah it just worked okay."

Wo0t then also joined in:

"One day Boo just came to me and said I like Fade, you like Omen. Why are we not changing? And I said yeah let's change. That happened."

Reflecting on them adjusting to this shift and its application, Boo continued:

"We just tried it in scrims and it worked. And now we tried it in officials and I think it worked. Like even though the match was close, it wasn't about the roles, we both played our roles well in my opinion. So yeah I think it's just more fun, it adds more depth to us. Maybe it's more scary for opponents now that we can switch roles."

Thanks to this win, Team Heretics will now proceed to the upper brackets of Valorant Champions 2024. The squad will now face Pacific's Gen.G to earn a precious spot in the Playoffs.

Check out these other Exclusives:

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paTiTek talks about his experience and teammates at Masters Shanghai
Boaster after their loss against Gen.G in Masters Shanghai
Coach, alecks after their match against 100 Thieves in Masters Shanghai
ZmjjKK after their elimination from Masters Shanghai