Is Corrode attack-sided or defense-sided? – VCT Stage 2 results explained

VALORANT’s latest map, Corrode, has seen its first glimpses of competitive play with the beginning of each region’s Stage 2 tournaments. Initially considered a defense-favoured map, a breakdown of Stage 2 performances indicates that the truth may not be so clear.

Titan Esports Club first to pick Corrode worldwide

With teams clearly eager to try something new, the Nomandy-based map was immediately utilised in all four VALORANT Champions Tour regions.

The first team to pick Corrode worldwide was China’s Titan Esports Club. It also happened to be the first series of any region, worldwide, for Stage 2.

Though Titan picked the map, the gulf in quality between them and opponents EDward Gaming saw the latter cruise to a 13-6 victory. However, despite the dominant scoreline, the overall rounds won by attacking versus defending sides were fairly close.

In the match, the attacking team won a total of 8 rounds, while the defenders won slightly more with 11. EDG were the attackers during the first half, in which they only managed a slim 7-5 lead while playing on what was perceived to be the tougher side. Once they moved to defense, the game was much more one-sided with EDG winning 6 of the next 7 rounds to complete their victory.

China’s second Corrode match tells a different story

Next up in China to pick the French map was Masters Toronto sweethearts Wolves Esports. Their clash with FunPlus Phoenix told a much different story than the one between TEC and EDG.

Eventual winners FPX started on attack, like EDG, but rather than end halftime with a narrow lead, FunPlus batted Wolves to go into the break 10-2 up. By that point, an FPX victory was largely a given, and they did go on to close out at 13-7. But the second half, when the team was defending, saw Wolves clinch 4 rounds to FPX’s 3 — indicating that the attack-side may be the stronger, in opposition to the league’s previous result.

The bigger picture

Looking at each region’s first week of competition, there does seem to be somewhat of a pattern. The eight matches in which it appeared — albeit a small sample size — saw more defender round wins than attacker round wins on five occasions.

Overall, the number of round wins was very close, though still in the defender’s favour: attackers won 9.88 rounds on average versus 10.13 round wins for defenders. That said, the attacker’s figures are heavily skewed by two matches in particular — Wolves vs FPX, and Sentinels vs G2 — whereby the eventual victors won by dominant margins across the board and just so happened to get most of their rounds while attacking in the opening half.

Maybe the most interesting tidbit is the fact that, of the seven teams that picked Corrode, only three — Global Esports, Boom Esports, and Sentinels — were on the winning side. Of those, Sentinels were incredibly heavy favourites given Americas analyst babybay’s temporary signing to the roster in place of the absent leaf.