This VALORANT Pro's 'Clutch of the Year' play has to be seen

It's being called "the clutch of the year" and one of the best plays in VALORANT history. One of this year's outstanding players in the Pacific region, Nutchaphon "sScary" Matarat pulled off the impossible when it mattered the most. 

As a result, his team of Bleed esports made the promotion to the Pacific VALORANT top level for the next two years, winning the VCT Ascension Pacific Grand Final against Japanese esports organisation SCARZ.

The context

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With VALORANT, Riot Games tried a new approach to managing its highest level of esports competition. Instead of a franchise program for which partners have to buy in, the VALORANT Champions Tour is a system of global partnership leagues for which the developer hand-picked partnership teams based on several criteria.

To allow promotion into this system, VALORANT Challengers and its Ascension program was created, which allows esports organisations outside the VCT system to qualify for the highest-tiered competition for two years after besting all other Challenger teams in their region.

For the first time, Ascensions are happening globally, and sScary's Bleed made it to the grand final of the event, with only the winner gaining promotion. The Thai player has been considered one of the best players of VALORANT's Controller Agent class in his region and had been on fire the entire event. 

On the first map of the series and at a score of 12-9 in favour of Bleed and thus at map point, sScary finds himself in a 1v4 situation with less than 20 seconds of playtime remaining in the round.

The play

During a potential map-winning round, Bleed esports loses four of its members with the bomb dropped in a tricky spot on Haven between C Short and Site.

With less than 20 seconds left, sScary sneaks into Window and spots Kr1stal. Calm and collected, he holds his shot to get a better opportunity and scout the rest of the area.

With near-perfect timing, he takes aim on the Sova player while Jemkin is still mid-air, trying to get vision into Window with an unlucky jump. Just as the Jett player hits the ground, sScary swings on him and makes quick work.

Now merely 13 seconds left, sScary darts for the Spike with a big decision to be made. Does he try to peak the remaining two players, or does he use Omen's ultimate after picking up the objective.

Opting for the latter, sScary starts the Spike plant animation with just over four seconds left, activating it with less than half a second left on the round timer.

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Anticipating a quick rotation from his opponents, he tries to teleport up into Heaven, but the animation clips and he stays on Site. Smoking off the entrance, he opts to be proactive in his defence, pushing the smoke.

Clearing his angles, he finds TORANECO, who (judging by the angle he takes on the peak) didn't expect sScary's aggression.

Now hearing the last opponent's footsteps trying to trade his teammate, sScary swings and also kills Allen, resulting in a map victory and a clean Ace.

With confidence in their stride, Bleed took the momentum of that play and made quick work of SCARZ in a clean 3-0 sweep, qualifying for VCT Pacific 2024 and 2025. 

According to VALORANT community and analytics website vlr.gg, sScary dominated the series at an outstanding 1.45 Rating, top fragging both on Haven and Fracture with a +27 kill-differential over the entire series.