With a powerful star in the squad like Yay or Crashies, Optic Gaming always shows stability since entering the play-off phase. Chet's army defeated XSet, Cloud9 (along with 2-1) and The Guard (2-0) to attend the final of VCT 2022 North America Stage 1 Challengers, and won the first capacity to Masters 1 Reykjavik.
Meanwhile, despite falling down, The Guard still shows why he is the most interesting team this season. Entering the match with Cloud9, Trent and his teammates did not have any psychological problems. Even with the booming performance of Trent, Saya and Valyn, The Guard defeated Cloud9 with a score of 3-0.
In the map of Icebox, the situation proved tensions when the two teams were forced to pull into extra time to determine the victory. Finally, The Guard is a more brave team and won 17-15. At Haven map, the students of coach MCE completely destroyed their opponents with the result of 13-5. Saya personally continues to explode with agent Jett and owns 18 kills.
To lose quickly, Cloud9, despite their efforts, could not revive at the Split map and continue to fail 10-13. This result caused Cloud9 to give the last ticket to the Masters 1 Reykjavik for The Guard. Notably, the Los Angeles -based team has first attended an international tournament even though it was only established in November 2021.
The Guard's squad includes members Michael “Net” Bernet, Jacob “Valyn” Batio, Jonah “Jonahp” Pulice, Ha “Saya” Jung-woo and Trent “Trent” Cairns. In particular, Trent is a member competing in the starting position, and also the youngest person in The Guard squad when he just turned 17.
