The Asia Pacific Predator League 2024 tournament has officially commenced in Manila, Philippines, and we had the opportunity to catch up with Malaysia’s Valorant presentative Team Todak.

Team Todak consists of players fragile, kael, FrostyZ, jeed, and subbey, and last year during the Malaysia Qualifier Finals of the APAC Predator League Valorant tournament, the team pulled off an impressive performance and gained a spot in the main event.

This interview was edited for clarity.

While Team Todak did not secure a spot in the Grand Finals, their efforts are commendable, and we reached out to have an interview with them.

Tournament Thoughts

In the world of competitive tournaments, losing is not part of the plan, but it is still part of the game and there are lessons to be learned to improve. For Team Todak, the team noted that one cannot rely solely on what is being practiced during scrims as not everything will go according to plans in tournaments.

“In the future, we will try to improvise more and be able to change things on the fly. We learned that we also have to control our mental as a team. We rely on our momentum and communication, and if we can maintain that, we will do better.”

“Since our communication tends to start to break down as soon as things don’t go our way, we don’t get to bounce back. Which is why we have to keep the same energy and composure.”

In terms of their general thoughts on the tournaments, Team Todak mentioned that they are able to handle the pressure well. However, their expectation was a little too high and the outcome disappointed them.

As they would put it, adaptation is a weakness of theirs and they are looking to improve upon it.

Tier 1 Teams

In the world of esports, teams are generally divided into tiers based on their performances in international tournaments. There are Tier 1 teams, the ones that are generally regarded as the best in the world. These teams consist of players who are treated as celebrities for their immense skills by fans of the competitive shooter. For Valorant, some notable teams would be the likes of LOUD, Paper Rex, Sentinels, and OpTic Gaming, just to name a few.

As such, we ask if Team Todak feels any gap between them and Tier 1 teams and if they know ways to push themselves to become one.

“Tier 1 teams have more international experience as compared to us, who have been participating in more local tournaments. Moving forward, we will put more hours into applying different kinds of training routines for more strategies and improve upon our basic fundamentals, which we feel are lacking”

Esports Future in Malaysia

As Team Todak is a professional team based in Malaysia, we were curious about their thoughts regarding the esports scene in the country. To that, Team Todak said that the Valorant esports scene has been growing in Malaysia.

“We do have a lot of organization sponsors here in the country speaking up, and we do see a lot of teams joining tournaments. It will definitely be quite excellent to see our country being able to participate in the Olympics Esports.”

“Outlaw”, the Newest Gun in Valorant 

In the latest update for Valorant, Riot Games had added a new addition to the roster of guns available, the Outlaw, a mid-price sniper rifle that can fire two times before needing to reload. Since it is something quite new to Valorant, we were wondering what’s Team Todak’s thoughts on the weapon.

“The Outlaw has changed the economic meta of the game. Buying Light Shield is no longer as useful on eco rounds because if you are faced against an enemy with an Outlaw, it’s as though you are facing an Operator. We feel that it is quite overpowered at the moment,” said Team Todak.

For folks who are unfamiliar with Valorant terms, what they mean is that during eco rounds, certain rounds where a team would save to build up enough money for the following rounds, Light Shields are no longer desirable purchases.

Normally, Light Shields, or half armor, can be a useful purchase as they cost relatively cheap and add some survivability. However, the Outlaw can one-shot kill you even if you have armor equipped, which is why Team Todak compares the gun to the strongest Sniper in the game, the Operator, and that the economic meta has now shifted drastically.

Future Plans

Regardless, losing is not the end and Team Todak is already looking to the future. When asked about the next Predator League, they were not hesitant to say they would be ready to rise up to the challenge again even if the teams are Tier 1 teams as long as they learned from their mistakes and put in the effort during practices.

Of course, Malaysians always love a comeback story, and Team Todak is not letting any opportunity slip.

“We will try to quality for VCT (Valorant Champions Tour) next month, so as soon as we head back to Malaysia, we will start our training.”