Guardy, the unexpected star | Brand

This summer, Riot Games released some important news for the national VALORANT leagues.. With the arrival of the new franchise leagues, there will be changes in the regional ones, now called Challengers, aimed at trying to encourage the growth of the talent of the different countries.

The main rule, the one that has been talked about the most, is that of the three national players. For this year, all teams must have three members of Spanish nationality as starters in their teams.. While criticism rained down and there was talk of a possible drop in the average level of the league, many players made tryouts, looking for a hole.

One of them is Antonio Guardiola. Guardy, as he is better known, won the Radiant League in the first split of the 2022-2023 season., and showed that he was prepared to take the leap. But it was not one of the most prominent names, among the new promises that came to VCL. Now, based on demonstrating on the server, it is getting the attention it deserves.

A long run to the top

Despite his young age (he is barely 18 years old), Guardy already has experience at the top of the national VALORANT. After going through KPI, he played the Radiant League in 2021 with Einheit, a group that would later give his place to Bisons. However, his appearance at the top was with the Real Betis, team with which he managed to win the Radiant League and climb to the VRL Rising.

Unfortunately, this promotion would not last long, and after a tough season, the báticos returned to the second division, after finishing bottom and losing to KPI in the fight for promotion. A large part of the Betis squad will then become part of the FIVE Media Clan, for the first split of the Radiant League this season.

Again, Antonio Guardiola took the title of champion, and after a few months of tryouts he became part of Falcons, one of the new teams that have entered the Rising this year. This second opportunity of the Spanish flex is being very different from the first, and is establishing itself as one of the great stars.

The best by statistics

While many talked about the fact that foreign talent was more interesting than Spanish, and that the players from our country would lower the average level of the league, Guardy ranks first in almost all the statistics.. This is collected by the data from vrl.gg, which places him as the player with the highest rating, 1.50, ahead of B1SK, the Russian KPI beast that has 1.37.

In the average combat score, or ACS, he is in second position, behind the Russian duelist, with 292.9; and in the rest of the statistics it is the first. In murders divided by deaths he has a 1.70; in KAST it has 85%; in dao per round 180.7; and as if this were not enough, it has more than one kill per round and more than one assist every two rounds.

Guardy: “I think Insider is one of the best players in the league”

And furthermore, it should be noted that get these stats on one of the least expected teams and in a slightly different position than the one I played in the Radiant League pass. MARCA has spoken with the player to ask him about his feelings in this first half of the season.

“The beginning of the season has been quite good, finishing the first leg 6-3 is practically an achievement since we had a somewhat strange preseason with several players who dropped out a week before the roster lock“, indicated Guardy. Falcons had problems to close the group, but they have managed to give it stability, and they are working at a very high level, ranking third in the standings.

But these problems did not go unnoticed by league insiders, who placed them lower in the rankings in their bets: “It is normal that they underestimated us, since we do not have big names like other teams: H1ber, MiniBoo etc.. Still, it wasn’t something we cared about, we knew what we were capable of.”

Regarding his statistics, Guardy is aware of the complexity of what he has achieved, although he feels confident for the rest of the season: “Yes, I see myself as capable of maintaining the stats until the end of the season, although obviously it will be difficult.“.

In the last Radiant League, he also played the Chamber position, and now with the drop in his statistics he has returned to his role: “The ‘Flex’ is a position in which I have always been comfortable, it has been my role since the beginning of the gameso I have a lot of resources and will handle all the characters that the position requires.”

Finally, Guardy was clear when talking about a player who believes that he is valued less than he should: “I think Insider is one of the best players in the leagueonly that being with B1SK in the team can sometimes go more unnoticed but he is a player that I would love to have on my team”