takes aim at the Riot Games-sponsored tournament, First Strike. The First Strike regional finals will accept 8 teams, and Equinox is looking to be among them.

Equinox Esports, the organization that signed team China Nguyen, is set to continue playing in the First Strike UMG tournament today at 2PM CST. We’ll be updating with the current scores and let you know if their game is being streamed. We plan to update after a winner is called for each match.

LAST UPDATED: 11/12/2020 @ 6:27PM CST

Equinox Esports vs Luminosity Gaming
Game starts: 5PM CST
Round of 8
Best of 3

SCORE:

We use several sources for updating match and tournament information. Our main ones for this tournament are below!

Equinox Twitter

Liquipedia

UMG Gaming

LIVE BROADCAST on Twitch

First Strike is the first Riot Games-supported tournament with several regions, including North America. The First Strike Finals will be comprised of 8 teams and will be held in December.

To qualify for the First Strike Finals, a team must place top 4 in one of two qualifying tournaments: the Nerd Street Gamer (NSG) Tournament or the UMG Tournament. Each of those tournaments has their own qualifying rounds.

Currently, Equinox is in the qualifying stage of UMG’s tournament. Assuming they qualify, they’ll enter the UMG finals for a chance at landing top 4 as to enter the First Strike Finals.

Equinox Esports qualified to play in the NSG Tournament, however, they didn’t manage to land the needed “Top 4” to automatically enter the First Strike finals. Currently, First Strike finals consists of Team Envy, 100 Thieves, Renegades, and the Sentinels.

Despite a strong qualifying start beating FaZe Clan 2 to 1, Equinox ended up landing in 14th place. Had they landed 5-8th place, the team could’ve secured an automatic qualification for the UMG. However, since they didn’t, they’ll have to redeem themselves by re-qualifying in the UMG tournament.

“I was disappointed in our performance during NSG,” Equinox Esports’s Valorant Captain David “DXN” Nguyen said in an interview, “just because we felt like our losses were very preventative.” DXN went on to add that the team is still confident moving forward. DXN and the team have been intensely reviewing the mistakes in addition to seeing how to improve their playstyles for UMG.

“We just have to play our own game, adapt to what the other team will do and pave our way through with confidence.”  DXN said.

So far, Equinox has been living up to the confidence, beating out two teams on the first day of qualifiers before entering the second.

We’re entering the second day of qualifers for UMG. Equinox’s first game today will be against an unsigned team with not much information known about them: SOR.

DXN admitted he didn’t know what to expect from them, but considers them formidable after defeating Slimy Boogerman, who he considered a pretty good team. The same goes for us at Sooner Esports, and we are excited to see the results come in.

Assuming Equinox defeats SOR, they’ll then have one final bracket before qualifying, either against Luminosity Gaming or Spacestation Gaming depending on their game.

Notably, Equinox (when they were China Nguyen) actually faced off against Luminosity Gaming before: twice. In a September face-off, Luminosity took home the W 2-0. But, China Nguyen made a 2-0 comeback later that September as well.

Based on these, we can expect to seem some tight games coming up. So stayed tuned for more information!

11/12/2020 @ 3:38PM:

Nox’s first map with SOR, or StraightOuttaRanked, came in tight with a Equinox ahead 13-11. It looks like its going to continue to be a tight match, but the ball is in SOR’s court to see if they can push the match back on even ground.
On the other bracket side of things, Luminosity Gaming (LG) and Spacestation Gaming (SSG) are having a tight match as well. Currently 1-1 overall, their third map is shaping up to be a neck-in-neck battle.

11/12/2020 @ 3:53PM:

Equinox takes home a W 13-9! They are taking a break as we wait to see who they face off next: LG or SSG?
The two teams are still locked together in the third map, LG leading 4 – 3.

11/12/2020 @ 4:30PM:

Spacestation Gaming rockets to a 2-1 victory over Luminosity, a back and forth match that was close almost all the way down.

NOX vs SSG is coming next! When we know a time you will.

11/12/2020 @ 5:08PM:

NOX vs SSG has begun! The stream is being casted by Jordan here. Since its being streamed, we won’t post as many updates, but here are some things of note before you head off.
Now that we are in the last bracket before qualification, if Equinox can take this home, they’re in. If they lose, they’ll get one last shot at redemption in a loser’s bracket. Same goes for Spacestation. It may come down close. Watch the stream linked above!