FULL SENSE PTC: “We just tried to focus on ourselves and have fun”
If you asked around about the expectations for FULL SENSE heading into VALORANT Champions, the average fan would likely pass them off as another minor region team. And it’s not hard to see why.
FULL SENSE was dropped into the group of death with Cloud9 Blue, Vision Strikers, and a Fnatic roster that had found new life on LAN.
And so FULL SENSE took the lack of expectations in stride and allowed themselves to play their own game. After a relatively one-sided match against Korean juggernauts Vision Strikers, FULL SENSE would tie up with another formidable foe in Cloud9 Blue who has been on a hot streak since winning the North American LCQ.
I asked FULL SENSE’s Kititkawin “PTC” Rattanasukol about how his team prepared for their match against C9 “We all focused on the individual mistakes that we made during our Vision Strikers game.”
But when it came to the time of the match it was clear that Cloud9 had the confidence. The NA roster walked on stage with confidence sporting their whimsical new Cloud9 x The Smurfs jerseys. And that confidence on stage translated into the server.
On Split, FULL SENSE won three of the first four rounds. But then C9 went on a tear, winning the final eight rounds of the half before closing out the map 13-7.
When I asked about the map PTC described just how quickly FULL SENSE lost control. “-everything went downhill really fast and the game went super fast and before we know it we are down so many rounds already I didn’t get a moment to think about how we could change the game”.
Perhaps the experience of map one helped them when it came to Breeze. According to PTC after map one FULL SENSE “-didn’t really think about win or loss we didn’t think that we had to win from the start so we just tried to focus on ourselves and tried to have fun”.
And the carefree attitude was palpable during map two. Despite Cloud9’s 90% win rate on Breeze FULL SENSE looked rejuvenated, entering the half at a tied 6-6 scoreline despite playing defense on the second-most attacker-favored map in the tournament.
But Cloud9 would return the favor by tying the second half and sending the match to overtime. Cloud9 took the first round of overtime placing the pressure was on FULL SENSE to win round 26 to keep the map alive. But it seems that the pressure got to FULL SENSE. Instead of standing their ground, FULL SENSE let their opponents stick a defuse to close out the map and the series.
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When I asked PTC about the round he explained it was a case of miscommunication, “-during our last fight there was a lot of miscommunication I asked Superbus if he had molly, he said he did but it turned out that he didn’t, so everything just went downhill from there”.
And so off the back of a catastrophic final round FULL SENSE’s ticket home was punched. However, they will leave with their heads up. “We didn’t really have an expectation coming in,” PTC said “I think with better matchups we might have made it to the playoffs”.
As a bonus, PTC made sure to pick up some souvenirs to take with them back to the SEA region. “I think we definitely have a lot of lessons to be learned. I got a lot of experience playing with teams in Europe and it is very different from the SEA. So there will obviously be a lot of changes”.
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As FULL SENSE heads home, my mind wanders to the SEA region as a whole. How will the experiences of the region’s three representatives alter the landscapes and playstyle of Southeast Asia in the months and years to come? Much is left to be seen, but there is hope for a future where fans can expect the SEA region to stand up to the conventionally powerful regions in VALORANT.
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