Emir ‘Alfajer’ Beder and Fnatic want to complete their sweep of VCT international tournaments at Valorant Champions. The Turkish player talked about how he views the team’s success and which opponent he wants to face at the Valorant World Championship.
Alfajer doesn’t remember much about his first Valorant Champions stage walkout. The Turkish teenager walked out on the Istanbul stage to a rapturous hometown crowd and raised his hands in the air to call for even more cheers.
“I’m normally not doing anything for the walkout, I’m just walking normally,” Alfajer said in an interview with Dexerto. “But when I walked for the first time in Istanbul, I got really excited. I didn’t know I [raised my hands] actually, I learned after the match.”
Less than a year later, Alfajer will be returning to the Valorant Champions stage, this time with a Fnatic roster that can count its losses on one hand. The team has a VCT LOCK//IN and Masters Tokyo trophy to their name and only needs one more to complete a sweep of the VCT international tournament circuit.
Some Valorant fans are ready to call Fnatic an esports dynasty in the same breath as Astralis or T1, but Alfajer has pushed back on the label. He said establishing a dynasty in Valorant is difficult with how often new things are added to Riot Games’ shooter, and Fnatic still needs more trophies under their belt.
“No, no, no, we aren’t at that level yet,” Alfajer admitted.
Alfajer talks Fnatic’s team dynamic in VCT matches
The possibility of winning three VCT major tournaments is on Alfajer’s mind, but it doesn’t add any pressure for the upcoming tournament.
“We’ve already won two times, so we are just comfortable right now,” he said.
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Fnatic added two new players ahead of its 2023 run: Timofey ‘Chronicle’ Khromov and Leo ‘Leo’ Jannesson. The two young players immediately added a new level of firepower to the squad.
Fnatic has a callout this season, “DRX”, that they use when they need to play disciplined. Which, based on their success, has worked out well for them. Alfajer said the two new additions are some of the more disciplined players on the roster, and the ones that call for him and Nikita ‘Derke’ Sirmitev to be less aggressive.
“We want to peek all the time,” he said. “Leo, Chronicle and Jake ‘Boaster’ Howlett, play safe but me and Derke always want to peek.”
Fnatic are in Group C at Valorant Champions
Fnatic will start their Valorant Champions journey in Group C along with ZETA DIVISION, NRG Esports and Bilibili Gaming. Fnatic will have to play through this group and make the bracket stage for Alfajer to go up against the teams he is hoping to face at the tournament.
“I want to play Paper Rex and LOUD. LOUD just lost two matches and they were eliminated at Tokyo, but I think they are still one of the top three strongest teams right now. And I want to play Paper Rex because Ilya “something” Petrov has his visa now,” he said.
While Alfajer said calling Fnatic’s run a dynasty is a stretch, he did express that his team’s run is historic and he hopes people will recognize it in years to come.
“I think we’re going to make history in Valorant and everyone is going to say, like in 10 years, this Fnatic was the best. 2023 Fnatic was the best, they’re going to say this,” the Turkish player said.
