We’re just over a week away from VALORANT’s international LAN debut at VCT Masters Reykjavik. This event will simultaneously be both a global and local event with teams across the world competing on LAN. Several players are just arriving to Iceland now so that they can participate in the extensive quarantine needed for COVID protocols.
The field is set and the teams are arriving for VCT Masters Reykjavik. Image via Riot.
Riot and VALORANT have sought to hold local events since before the game even came out. They had planned to invite a huge amount of streamers and pro players to Los Angeles to look at the game up close. However, these plans were derailed when COVID-19 began to emerge at a serious pace, forcing Riot to switch everything to online only.
Despite the switch, VALORANT’s pro scene has still risen steadily since mid-2020. A huge amount of top-tier organizations have dived in head first, competition has been exciting, and it’s reaching players on a global scale. All of that has led to this; 10 teams from around the world looking to claim the first taste of international success. In addition, the teams are motivated to place well to better ensure a spot at the Champions event at the year’s end.
VCT Masters Two Reykjavik Format
There will be no group stage or round-robin format for VCT Masters Two Reykjavik. All ten teams have been drawn into a double-elimination bracket via two draws. Draw 1 consisted of the respective winners of the NA and the EMEA Challengers Finals, Sentinels and Team Liquid. Draw 2 consisted of all eights of the remaining teams. The Draw 1 teams will have their opponents decided by two play-in matches, pitting Fnatic vs KRU Esports, and Version1 vs Crazy Raccoon. Both play-in games as well as one of the upper bracket round one games will take place on day one, on Monday. Day two will see the remaining three upper bracket round one matches played.
All matches will be best-of-three, except for the best-of-five grand finals. The upper bracket winner will NOT have a map advantage in the grand finals.
1st place earns 400 points, 2nd earns 350, 3rd earns 300, and 4th earns 250. 5th and 6th each earn 200, 7th/8th earn 175, and 9th/10th earn 150.
VCT Masters Two Reykjavik Qualifiers
As mentioned above, the teams that made it to Iceland each took different but equally challenging roads to get here. You can read more about each team and what makes them special in our full VCT Masters Reykjavik preview, but here’s a brief refresher on how everyone made it.
From North American, Sentinels and Version1 emerged from the NA Challengers Finals’ double-elimination bracket. Sentinels have now claimed two straight domestic victories and didn’t drop a single series in either Masters One or the NA Finals. Version1 was relatively unknown in the first stage of the VCT, but after upsetting the red hot FaZe Clan early in the open qualifiers of the second stage, they scraped together a run through the NA Finals lower bracket.
In Europe, two teams with less than stellar performances in stage one now look unbeatable after some slight roster changes. Both Fnatic and Team Liquid tore through the competition at the EMEA Challengers Finals. They each finished first in their GSL-style groups, and dominated their opponents in the semifinals. Both teams dismantled their fellow European teams in FPX and Guild, as well as competition from Turkey and CIS. The only teams that gave them any trouble were each other in a spectacular five-map grand final that saw Liquid just narrowly edge out Fnatic.
In both Korea and Japan, the consensus favorites heading into their respective Finals fell at the final hurdle. Vision Strikers’ year-long undefeated streak ended in the Korea Finals group stage. Then they lost again to NUTURN Gaming in the semifinals, who would go on to 3-0 DAMWON in the grand finals to advance to Iceland. Japan favorite Absolute JUPITER was beaten twice at the end of their double-elimination bracket by Crazy Raccoon.
X10 Esports continued their hot streak against Southeast Asian competition, advancing through the SEA Challengers Finals’ upper bracket without dropping a series. In Brazil, Team Vikings did the same while only dropping one map, and Sharks Esports joins them in Iceland after they won the lower bracket final. Lastly, KRÜ Esports went undefeated in the Latin America Challengers Finals.
VALORANT Champions Tour Standings
The global VCT standings pre-Reykjavik. Image via Liquipedia
This image from the VALORANT Liquipedia shows the top teams in VALORANT Champions Tour points for each region. For the ten teams that are attending VCT Masters Reykjavik, the point totals they currently have assumed the minimum amount of points they could acquire, that being 150 for 9th/10th place. The team that finishes 1st earns a staggering 400 VCT points, which almost certainly assures them a Champions spot.
At Champions, the top two teams in VCT points for North America, EMEA, Brazil, and Southeast Asia will each earn a spot. Additionally, the top team from Japan, Korea, and Latin America will earn a spot. Four more teams from Last Chance events will also earn spots. The four Last Chance events will represent North America, EMEA, South America (Brazil + Latin America) and Asia (Korea, Japan, and SEA). Finally, the winner of Masters Three Berlin also earns a spot at Champions, and this team can obviously be from any region.
Master Two Reykjavik begins on Monday, May 24 from the Laugardalshöll venue.
