VALORANT’s 2021 Champions Tour is about to end with the grandest stage of all. After two international competitions and countless regional tournaments, one of the 16 deserving teams will be crowned as the king of VALORANT.
The tournament will be held in Berlin once again to determine the best. The winner will take home prize money of $350,000. In addition, while Masters Reykjavik and Masters Berlin were also international tournaments, Champions is considered to be a notch above on a higher level. That means the winning team will be the first Major champion in VALORANT esports. Who wants to miss such an opportunity?
Who’s coming to VALORANT Champions 2021?
EMEA sends four representatives to VALORANT Champions 2021 this year. Gambit Esports won their spot by winning Masters Berlin and they are the favourites of this tournament. nAts and his friends are the main force of EMEA and they will play under pressure by knowing this fact.
Acend and Fnatic earned their spot by simply being the best teams throughout the year, winning enough EMEA Circuit Points to stay on top of the list. Acend will bring cNed, and through the EMEA Last Chance Qualifier Team Liquid will bring Europe’s other superstar, ScreaM. Together with his brother, he managed to take his team to Champions 2021. EMEA looks like they are the strongest region here and we will see if they can live up to that.
North America will send Sentinels, Team Envy and Cloud9 Blue, who eliminated 100 Thieves during the NA Last Chance Qualifier. Sentinels had a great 2021 until Masters Berlin, and in contrast, Team Envy had a very bright performance at Masters Berlin. On the other hand Cloud9 Blue was disappointing, until their success during the Last Chance. We’ll see if they are able to catch up to the level of competition here.
Korea, the third strongest region in VALORANT history which is relatively short, will only send one representative. It was a bit of a shock, but FULL SENSE from Thailand stole APAC Last Chance and Korea will be represented by widely known Vision Strikers. We know what they are capable of from Masters Berlin, and Korea will definitely want more spots in the future.
Southeast Asia will send X10 CRIT and Team Secret along with FULL SENSE. X10 CRIT is actually X10 Esports rebranded, and Team Secret bought Bren Esports’ former roster, thus earning the right to be here through the Circuit Points. Both of these teams had problems on the international stage in the past, so they probably won’t show too much here either.
Japan sends Crazy Raccoon we know and love, LATAM sends Agüero’s KRÜ Esports, Brazil sends Team Vikings, Keyd Stars and FURIA Esports. These teams couldn’t match up to the level of their opponents before, and even though Brazil has an opportunity to send three teams at once, their future at Champions 2021 doesn’t look so bright. It might be too early to tell, but they might have to settle with getting international competitive experience and focus on next year.
However, according to the group draw, at least one team from Team Vikings, Team Secret and Crazy Raccoon will make it out of the group stage, while one of Vision Strikers, Fnatic and Cloud9 Blue have to be eliminated. Maybe they can use this opportunity to surprise people even more. That’s always a possibility in VALORANT. You can see the group draw below:
What happened on VCT 2021?
VCT 2021 included three Masters tournaments before Champions. Masters 1 was a regional competition. Sentinels won North America, Acend won Europe, Gambit won CIS, Futbolist won Turkey, Vision Strikers won Korea, Crazy Raccoon won Japan, X10 Esports won SEA, Team Vikings won Brazil, LDM Esports won LATAM North and Australs won LATAM South.
Then, Masters Reykjavik (2) and Masters 3 (Berlin) became international tournaments, and teams participated in “Challengers” events to qualify for those. Masters 2 was won by North American representative Sentinels and Masters 3 was won by CIS/EMEA representative Gambit Esports.
You can find and bet on VALORANT Champions and more VALORANT events at Luckbox’s VALORANT matches page.
