With all the regions securing their Top 2, the Masters Bangkok VALORANT teams have been confirmed. And with all Grand Finals now completed, the seeding is locked in too.
Masters Bangkok VALORANT
The first of the Masters stages, Bangkok is going to be the first time that Riot has taken its Tier 1 roster to the country. Previously they’ve had VALORANT events in Thailand, with Challengers 2024. For VCT though, it’ll be the capital’s first. The top 2 teams from Kick Off would be put forward for this 8 team tournament. Starting with a Swiss Stage, taking 6 of the teams further through to the Playoff bracket, 4 in Upper Bracket, 2 in the Lower bracket. All the teams will be playing for a chunk of a $500,000 prize pool. Winners of all of their domestic Grand Finals came in as first seeds for their region. Matching up against the 2nd seed from a different region for Round 1 of the Swiss.
China’s Representitives show promise
Of course EDward Gaming (EDG) coming in as the number 1 seed doesn’t exactly come as a surprise. Doing so from the lower bracket after getting walked in the Upper Bracket by Trace Esports wasn’t necessarily on the cards. Most people expected the number 1 and 2 seeds of EDG and BiliBili Gaming (BLG) were expected to play and rematch in the Upper Bracket Finals. Instead, thanks to the early drop, EDG would claw their way back up to the 1st seed spot after cleaning up the Loser’s bracket, going through BiliBili on the way for a rematch with Trace. Credit really does have to be given to Trace here. Not just upsetting the number 1 seed, their win over the number 2 seed secured their spot. While they didn’t quite have the results they wanted in the final bracket, they at least got the job done when it mattered so they’re going to get the chance to face off against the best of the best internationally.
- EDward Gaming (EDG)
- Trace Esports
From Down a CEO to Up a Championship – G2 Make History in more ways than one
Coming in from Ascension after missing out on partnership, due to the misguided actions of their once CEO, G2 have always been an underdog story waiting to happen. They had solid results in Challengers and came in as one of the many Ascension teams for the 2025 year. Where many of the ascension teams were looking to get maps on the board and maybe get some upset sets here and there, G2 had a verey different goal. Prove they belonged in Championships to begin with, and prove that they did. Going the full distance in Map 5 vs Sentinels, G2 secured a Trophy lift, making them the first team from Ascension to ever win an event in VCT. Unfortunately despite this they’ll need to win a Masters to guarantee their spot in VCT next year. The Finals went back and forth with SEN getting off to an early lead, dominating G2 on G2’s own map pick. A trend that would actually go back and forth for the rest of the final. Neither team managed to win any of their map picks, going into Haven on Map 5, which had been a near permaban for Sentinels for Kick Off. Despite some late signs of life after a rocky start to the final map, ultimately G2 would hold strong to secure that Number 1 seed for Bangkok.
- G2 Esports
- Sentinels
DRX Lift a Domestic Trophy again after what feels like Eons
While technically not their first Domestic win, its been a while since way back when, where they would go on sweeps, sometimes not dropping a map back in 2022 when the game was young. Since the level of competition actually went up, and teams like Paper Rex really carved out a niche for themselves, DRX have been a team that have done fantastically internationally, but fall short at home, often having to settle for qualifying for internationals. Final map gauntlets vs t1 in the Upper and Grand Finals netted them their first place seed, dodging Overtime in Split to get it done.
T1 were having some interesting roster shuffles, but have done a fantastic job to make it to Bangkok. A Team packed with talent that absolutely deserved their spot in the Upper Finals, the games really could have easily gone 2-0 T1, or 2-0 DRX if cards had fallen differently. Carpe had to sub in for for not just the Lower Bracket, but Grand Finals too. While he came up huge to get them across the line and a guaranteed ticket to Bangkok, my ex-Overwatch MVP was unfortunately pretty absent on the final map. It would be the young gun iZu that had the quietest series this time though, not dropping the massive numbers that got them this far. Credit where credit is due though, every T1 series went to the final map, and eventually thee amount of games you have to clutch up will catch up to you. With PRX having their average coin flip performance and bustering out, Korea’s Top 3 did as expected in the region. Here’s hoping that that the 2 that qualified to can go on as deep a run as the Gen.G that couldn’t go for a repeat did at Champions.
- DRX
- T1
Vitality Lifts 2 Trophies in 1 Day
With Vitality making some absolute money moves over the off season, they were everyone’s Team to watch coming into Kickoff. They did as expected, making their way to the Winner’s side without too much trouble outside of their opening match vs Karmine Corp. The dogwalked a Heretics that didn’t look anything like the team that were Finalists at Champions last year. Derke even got away with a Fake Yoru Clone right off the bat.
DERKE FAKES IT 🧠 pic.twitter.com/yHsP4CP0PY
— VALORANT Esports EMEA (@valesports_emea) February 7, 2025
Unfortunately though, Heretics did not get it in gear in the lower bracket either. Showing more signs that their fear in the server wasn’t limited to just vs Vitality. Team Liquid completed 5 straight maps of disappointment from the team most would have had qualifying for Bangkok, cleaning up Heretics 3-0. Liquid though went on to prove that whilee Heretics played poorly they were also playing at another level. They surprised pretty much everyone, going up 2-0 in Grand Finals vs Vitality, Taking Vitality’s Map Pick Split 13-10, and closing theirs on Haven 13-7. Pearl would be the start of Vitality waking up though, Sayf carrying some momentum from Map 2. Maybe they could feel it in the air as Vitality’s other team of Tac Shooter superstars secured IEM Katowice over in CS2 running concurrently with the EMEA finals. It took them 3 maps to get into it, but 13-6 and 13-7 on Lotus and Bind. And took 6 rounds on the trot to open up Fracture and a reverse 3-0 to emphatically shut the door on EMEA showed exactly what the French org hand in mind when they cashed out for this all-star roster.
- Team Vitality
- Team Liquid
