It’s crunch time for The Guard’s Valorant roster as they prepare to showdown with seven other of North America’s best teams in the Last Chance Qualifier (LCQ) tournament tonight. The team’s successes over the next few months are hugely consequential for The Guard, with not only prize money and glory on the line but also chances of securing a franchising partnership with Riot Games for 2023.
With so much at stake, The Guard has put together cinematic trailers to hype up the occasion and, hopefully, help cheer their team across the line. But these are no mere run-of-the-mill montages. Instead, they’re full-on cinematic trailers with exceptionally crafted CGI, and they look so good I thought I was at first watching official lore cinematics for the game.
It all comes down to this.#VALORANTLCQ pic.twitter.com/yhhufh4pA7
— The Guard (@TheGuard) August 3, 2022
Made by @dovanivan, the cinematic is part of a series The Guard has been running over the past week or so introducing their players ahead of LCQ. You can check out an example below for Trent.
“It always seems impossible until it’s done.”@trentFPS | #StandGuard pic.twitter.com/9iP6hnUX8w
— The Guard (@TheGuard) July 30, 2022
I’m surely not alone in appreciating the incredible attention to detail and overall quality of the cinematics, which do a great job setting the tone ahead of the tournament — which, as it happens, kicks off tonight as The Guard vs. Sentinels takes place at 4PM EST over on Valorant’s official Twitch channel.
As a reminder, the match will include the debut performance of Michael ‘shroud’ Grzesiek after the Twitch star and former CS:GO professional signed for the esports organization in July. The viewership is expected to be through the roof as both teams duke it out for a chance to progress through the tournament’s upper bracket.