How Warbirds plans on solving Team Secret’s inconsistency
Team Secret’s current performance in the VALORANT Champions Tour (VCT) 2023: Pacific League has been a roller coaster of inconsistency.
After starting the season with wins against fellow Southeast Asian juggernauts Talon Esports and Paper Rex, Secret went on a slump and lost the next succeeding series against Gen.G and Rex Regum Qeon. For a hot minute, Secret looked like they were able to get back to their winning form as they swept DetonatioN FocusMe but this week’s loss against ZETA DIVISION reignited the doubts about the team. Many were left wondering whether or not they will be able to get into the playoffs.
Team Secret’s Map Picks Became Predictable
When asked about what might’ve caused their inconsistent performance, Team Secret’s VALORANT coach Evan “Warbirds” Olzem confessed it was due to their varying performances in the maps that they play.
“Coming in, we had kind of our set maps that we wanted to play, with it being Icebox, Fracture, and Haven,” coach Warbirds revealed in their post-ZETA match interview. “Those [maps] are kind of like our big three [maps to play on].”
Team Secret’s map stats within the last 90 days | Via Run It Back
Looking at their map stats, coach Warbirds is right. Indeed, Team Secret likes to play on Fracture, Icebox, and Haven as their play and win rates would suggest. Their signature map pick, Icebox, was even thought by T1 to be Team Secret’s best map which prompted coach Warbirds to share how they stomped the South Korean team on the map in scrims.
“I think the reason [why T1 said Icebox was our best map] was because we gigastomped them in scrims,” coach Warbirds shared with a chuckle. “One of our last scrims on Icebox was versus T1 and I think we rode them.”
Unfortunately, their opponents have realized their map strengths so coach Warbirds admitted there’s a bit of a struggle on their big three maps.
“As we kinda went on [in VCT Pacific League], we were struggling a little bit on those maps,” said coach Warbirds. “So, then it was like: okay, do we improve our worse maps or do we improve our better maps?”
With that in mind, Coach Warbirds then revealed that they were working on improving their plays in both their strong and weak maps. In fact, they showed a glimpse of what they’re working on with their faceoff against ZETA DIVISION.
A Glimpse of Team Secret’s Evolving Map Strategies
With Icebox’s departure over the horizon, the Secret-ZETA series featured debut maps for each team this season, with each team hoping to get the other by surprise with their map picks. ZETA chose to debut in Split for the first map while Secret debuted in Lotus for the second game, ultimately having Fracture as the decider.
Talking about their Lotus pick, Warbirds revealed how it was their anti-strategy against ZETA.
“[The Lotus pick] was kind of an anti-strat where ZETA wasn’t really comfortable on it,” coach Warbirds explained. “It’s a map that we’ve been working on for like a decent amount of time.”
He then continued with how they wanted to surprise ZETA in Lotus, which proved to be successful as they won the second game of the series 13-10.
“[The Lotus pick was] kind of like a surprise factor. I don’t think they saw it coming. They probably weren’t so well-practiced on it.”
Meanwhile, when asked about why Secret opted to ban Bind and leave Fracture as the decider, Jessie “JessieVash” Cuyco revealed how they prefer Fracture currently more than Bind.
“For the past scrims, I think Bind is a really good [map] for us,” Team Secret’s team captain revealed. “It’s just that we think Fracture is our map. Fracture is our better map.”
JessieVash also shared how they thought ZETA apparently also disliked the map.
“From what we see on ZETA, they don’t like Fracture,” he shared.
Unfortunately, in spite of their confidence, Secret lost on Fracture 13-9 and ultimately lost the series as well 2-1.
Despite that, Team Secret showed grit, determination, and new map plays in their matchup with ZETA. As fans of the Adobo Gang, let’s all just hope they’re cooking a whole lot more for their last three remaining games against T1, DRX, and Global Esports.
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