A hard battle was fought between these two giant killers
Acend beat Team Heretics at the European VCT Masters 1, making them the first EU champions for a major tournament for VALORANT in Europe. The team, comprising of 
Santeri “BONECOLD” Sassi, 
Mehmet Yağız “cNed” İpek, 
Vlad “Kiles” Shvets, Jose Luis “Koldamenta” Aranguren Herrero and 
Patryk “starxo” Kopczyński fought hard against Team Heretics with a 3:2 score. This is also the first Masters where we saw a round lead into extended time.
The maps in play were Split, Bind, Haven, Icebox and Ascent. Both teams fielded strong lineups, with each team scoring wins one after the other before the final round was played. Both teams played well, with an even number of kills between them. As a side note, 
Dustyn “nieSoW” Durnas subbed in for 
Ruben “RUBINO” Villarroel on map 1 and Melih “pAura” Karaduran on map 4.
On the fourth map (Icebox) however, a series of kills forced Team Heretics to overtime, as the score was level at 12 to 12 thanks to a kill at the second. 
Žygimantas “nukkye” Chmieliauskas could have clinched the victory for Team Heretics, but by sheer skill and luck from Jose Luis “Koldamenta” Aranguren Herrero prevented them from grabbing the win for Masters EU.
In the end, team Acend won the final game, thus nabbing the title of Masters 1 EU for themselves.
With the win, the team took home the USD 60,000 prize money, as well as 100 points for their journey to the Championship at the end of the year. The runner up, Team Heretics, took home USD 30,000 and 75 points.
The next stage of the competition, Challengers 2 will start sometime in late April/early May in multiple regions around the world and will give the teams a chance to gather more points for themselves for the Champions in December.
