FX stk: “Being in VCT Americas is a huge achievement”

After building a strong run in Brazil’s Tier 2 scene and winning VCL Brazil, FLUXO W7M have reached VCT Americas. The team secured their spot in the tournament after winning the title and are now preparing to face Cloud9 in the Play-In, with an opportunity to measure themselves against some of the region’s top teams.

For Jordan “stk” Nunes, the moment also represents a return to the VCT Americas stage. The coach previously competed in the league with LOUD, but now reaches Tier 1 after building his own path through VCL Brazil. In an exclusive interview with Sheep Esports on Tuesday, August 11, stk discussed his development as a coach, the differences he expects to find at the international level, and his preparation for the matchup against Cloud9.

Jordan “stk” Nunes: “It is very rewarding. We did a really good job in VCL Brazil and had a very beautiful journey. For me, it is an even more enjoyable experience of proving myself and overcoming challenges. Being in VCT Americas is a huge achievement. It is a little different from the experience we had before. Being recognized for your work and being invited to work for an organization is great, but it is different when you earn the opportunity more directly to be where I am now, especially after having experienced VCT Americas before.

stk: A lot of things. I have said it a few times: I am a very different coach from the one I was during my time at LOUD, especially regarding the tactical side of the game. I see the game differently today. I used to look at the game more from an FPS perspective in general, also based on my experience as a player and coach in other games. Nowadays, I understand VALORANT as something more unique. I can plan matches a little better, plan how we are going to practice during the week better, what I want to achieve, and what the players need to achieve individually as well. I feel like I am a much more prepared coach today to lead my team.

Regarding the level of the teams, we have been practicing against some Tier 1 teams. We have had good practice sessions. To be honest, we have not had very good results, but from my perspective, winning practice sessions is not important. What matters is being able to take good lessons from them and refine what we already have. For example, a tactic that was being executed in a certain way may be punished a little more here. We are managing to refine and polish our ideas and our characteristics as a team so that we can reach the best possible level to face Cloud9 on Friday.

stk: Naturally, since I was very young, I have always been the IGL of my teams, so I think I am someone who can manage a group well. For me, being a coach is mainly about managing the players and the tactical side of planning the game itself. As a manager, I have always had a very good level. I continue to maintain that level. Obviously, we keep learning how to deal with different people and different situations. Those are things you learn through life, so I am an even better manager than I was before. But I think the thing I improved the most was how I prepare my teams for practice, how I prepare them for a match, and how I can correct a problem.

I feel that nowadays, I have reached such a broad level of knowledge through all the studying I have done since I left LOUD. There was a first split when I spent eight months without working and studied the game a lot. Today, I feel like I am a coach who has a solution for any kind of situation within the game, whether it is a position, a specific tactic, or a specific opponent. Nowadays, I have a huge range of possibilities and knowledge to help my team in any situation, whether it is an in-game adversity or finding a way to make a match more complex, things like that.

stk: I talk a lot with my players about how Brazil has good teams, both tactically and individually. But I think the biggest difference here in VCT Americas is that the players are individually much better. I don't think there is a huge tactical difference between the teams. I don't think we are going to be punished that much strategically. But some decisions we made in Brazil and some tactics we used could be solved by the players individually because we have a very high-firepower team compared to Brazil. So we won a lot of rounds basically through aim. Here, if a player makes a wrong decision and takes a 2v2 or 1v1 fight, the chance of losing that duel is a little higher, and it will hurt our team more. So I tell the guys that we need to be smarter and more responsible with our tactical role within the game so that we don't lose an individual duel purely through aim, because the players here are better and that affects the team as a whole.

stk: From an off-game perspective, we are still in this mood of being very united and sacrificing for one another. We are practicing a lot. We even practiced on the day we arrived from our trip. Even though we were tired, we wanted to practice, we wanted to improve, and we really want to be champions. Outside the game, we maintain the unity we had, which I think is our biggest difference. The way we support one another, help each other every day, and how the atmosphere is also very light. In-game, our difference was, with all due respect, having very good game plans. In many matches we played during a good stretch of the tournament, we won without giving up eight or seven rounds because we were able to control the match very well.

If we can replicate that here, just like we did in Brazil, win the bonus rounds and open a 4-0 lead, we will very likely be able to win matches by a fairly wide margin. Our team is very good at taking control of a match. If we get ahead, we can run over the opponent. We are also a team that can show a lot of resilience when we fall behind. We are a very balanced team. If we can maintain the balance we had during most of VCL Brazil, I think we have everything we need to perform well. At one point or another, we were a little more inconsistent, but I think as the tournament went on, with the losses we had in the group stage and the first loss we had against FURIA Academy, we managed to grow a lot, and we started to grow even more in the playoffs. If we can maintain this balance, we will perform very well in this tournament.

stk: Change a lot of things? Not really. I don't think that is the right word. I think we always need to refine the things we already have. We are at a stage of refinement, of really polishing our ideas, the decisions we make, and the way we approach the map at certain moments. Sometimes we would extend certain fights for too long. We cannot do that here because, as I said, these guys are better and they will obviously punish us. We don't need to change anything fundamentally because I think the way we see the game, the way we believe in it, both the players and I, and the way we behave on the server is correct. I just think we need to refine one thing or another so that we don't show a certain level of inconsistency in the tournament that could make us lose because we have less room for error.

stk: I expect it to be a really good match. It is a good matchup for us, especially regarding the map pool. They play maps similar to the ones we like to play. They also have a style of play that we like to face. It is not a style with a lot of craziness, like LEVIATÁN with many fast executions. It is a more structured style of play. So I think we will have a good read on them. The expectation is to win the match. Cloud9 have improved a lot over the last two rounds. They managed to beat 100 Thieves, who were the toughest opponent in the group. They are on an upward trajectory. We know they are in a good moment, but we believe we can be the better team and overcome them both tactically and individually.

stk: I think we are a better team on defense. We have slightly better adaptation than they do, and we also have more setups to play and position different players around the map. We are a team with more tactical variety on defense, especially. I think that can be our difference.”