Ontario Tech Student Union defeated Humber 2-1 to start the College Valorant East tournament on Jan. 24. Humber took the first map, Split, 13-6, with OTSU edging the victory in the second map 13-11.
In-game leader Ashton “Tune” Pham said the morale on the team jolted to an all-time high after the first map.
“Going into the second map, we had really high confidence that we were going to just take it away quite easily. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the outcome,” Pham said.
He said the team’s poor attack side cost them the second map.
“We definitely could have been better on our attack side with our utility and the way we executed things together as a team,” he said.
Pham said the acceptable defensive side couldn’t make up for the attack side’s blunders. “Our defence side couldn’t pick up for that slack,” he said.
“If attack side were consistent, our mess-ups on the retake on the CT (defensive) side wouldn’t have been a huge issue towards us,” Pham said.
The final match came down to OTSU winning both overtime rounds 14-12.
Pham said Humber’s all-new roster didn’t have a lot of experience on the final map, Corrode. “It was a struggle,” he said.
Humber won the first four rounds on the attacking side, then lost 10 consecutively.
Humber made up the difference with eight consecutive wins in a row on defence to bring the match to overtime. Pham said that momentum was on their side.
However, pressure got to the team in the final stages, and the team “couldn’t close it out,” he said.
“For new players, there is a big struggle when it comes to pressure,” Pham said. “It got messy toward the end in overtime.”
Duelist Kassim “Rage” Adan said the team is new to collegiate-level Valorant, while only a few players have competitive experience.
Pressure played a factor, but for duelist Kassim "Rage" Adan, other aspects of the game affected the two rounds that dealt the game-losing blow.
“I think it came down to our actual retakes. We were just kind of off,” Adan said.
Adan said one of the game-deciding mistakes was OTSU’s sentinel player single-handedly winning them the round to bring the match to overtime.
“There were a lot of mistakes that cost us the round, especially the round to go into OT,” he said.
Humber came into the matchup as underdogs with the average in-game ranking of the OTSU roster at approximately Immortal 1 while Humber’s roster averages at Ascendant 3, Pham said. OTSU’s radiant coach subbed into the match, outranking everyone in the lobby, he said.
According to the 2026 College Valorant Season Official Rulebook, a player can be a coach and a member of the active roster.
“We should have won anyway,” Pham said. “I’m not going to make an excuse that he played, and that’s the reason we lost.”
Adan said he wanted to win this series more than anything.
He said Humber played OTSU earlier this year at the WaterLAN tournament in Waterloo, where they did not win a map.
That matchup was the same as this series. “Small minor errors and playing with confidence that holds us back,” Adan said.
Although Adan said he’s proud of the improvement by winning a map this time around.
Pham said the team's goal remains clear: to exceed last season’s 1-4 record.
“I speak for everyone, we want to win,” Pham said. “My goal is to definitely make the playoffs.”
