In the debut match of the Valorant Game Changers 2025 Championship, Nova Esports GC Nova Esports GC Game Changers Rank #393 alyssa Annitta Peerwantanagul icebox Clem 7er shirazi Kelly Jaudian defeated Ninetails Ninetails Korea Unranked h4ste Park Ju-hwi (박주희) 2-0. This matchup of the Pacific second-seed against the top team from China Stage 2 was a quick one, as the Chinese GC team earned an early win and moved on in the upper bracket.

The series began on Bind, with the two teams running very different compositions. Ninetails opted for a double-Initiator comp with Veto, Waylay, and Tejo. Nova ran a double-Controller with Brimstone and Viper, with Deadlock rounding it out. A stalwart pistol defense from Nova earned them the early lead, and despite failing to convert the bonus round, Nova had full control. Ninetails slowly started to adapt to the defense, fighting back to only end the half down 7-5.

Moving to the attack side, another pistol win for Nova extended the lead, but this time the team converted the bonus round to start a second-half steamroll. Ninetails only won one round on the defense side, as the map ended 13-6 for Nova Esports GC.

Map two was Haven, with both teams running the same composition: double-Controller with Sova, Neon, and Killjoy. Ninetails needed to start the second map strong to keep the series within reach, and a pistol win and bonus conversion put them in the lead. It took until round six for Nova to win its first defense round on Haven, with Ninetails ending the first half up 8-4.

Now, Nova was on the back foot and needed to win the pistol to try and sweep the series. Not only did Nova win the pistol, but the team converted the bonus, and this was where shirazi started to heat up.

shirazi gets three kills against Ninetails.

That led to a tie game, and the momentum was leaning back to Nova. In a flip of the first half of Haven, it took until round nineteen for Ninetails to win its first defense round. Yet, this time it was different, because that round win was Ninetails' only defense round win, and Nova Esports GC ended Haven 13-9 and won the series 2-0.

The star of the series was shriazi, who had a standout Haven performance as Viper and ended the series with the best stats across both teams. That included a 1.25 match rating, 244 ACS, 160 ADR, and 5 first kills.

With this win, Nova Esports GC will face G2 Gozen G2 Gozen Europe Rank #252 Akita Esllene Xu amy Amy Lai Vania Aleyna Keskin mimi Michaela Lintrup in the upper bracket quarterfinals. As for Ninetails, the team moves to the first round of the lower bracket.