[OPINION] VCT Americas awards voting suffered from distinct recency bias in spite of voting criteria

The VCT Americas end-of-year awards have seemingly placed huge weight on late-season performances, including those that happened outside of the league itself, while the most consistent performers across the whole of 2025 have largely been snubbed. While the achievements of the awards’ recipients are not to be diminished, the presence of some names and omissions of others is a head-scratcher.

G2 wins three VCT Americas titles, only manages two awards

G2, three-time Americas champions this year, saw winners in just two of the awards’ nine categories. IGL valyn was voted Controller of the Year and was also the runner-up in the IGL category, while Leaf was picked as the Sentinel of the Year. Elsewhere, trent and JoshRT each came in second in the respective Initiator and Coach categories. Jawgemo also finished third in the Duelist of the Year award.

While a G2 winner in some awards — particularly Rookie of the Year — would not have made sense, it’s hard to imagine that some members didn’t deserve the nod in others. Perhaps the lineup suffered from its own success; such dominance across the board may have made it difficult for specific players to stand out in voters’ minds.

But the most clear to have missed out is head coach JoshRT, beaten out by NRG’s bonkar. Again, the calibre of his team may have diminished the achievement of G2’s regional three-peat. Even still, it’s hard to discount a side that won a staggering 21 out of 23 domestic ties across the season. Leading the best team to titles they’re expected to win may not seem difficult to some, however doing so with such consistent results is arguably the more impressive part.

An additional struggle in gauging the best coach comes from the fact that the bulk of their work only happens behind closed doors. However, stark improvement, such as the one that saw NRG go from a middling bottom-half team to runners-up, is a clear sign of the coach’s positive impact, and so bonkar is hardly an altogether undeserving winner.

Recency bias & awards voting criteria

It’s hard to imagine that the voters were not influenced by the freshness of NRG’s Stage 2 glow-up and subsequent historic Champs win. The side saw winners in four categories and seven others in top three positions.

One of those wins came for Ethan as IGL of the Year, a role he only adopted for Stage 2. Third place was MIBR’s Verno, also new to IGLing during the same event. In contrast, valyn, who led G2 to all three titles, came in second, while johnqt, whose Sentinels finished runners-up twice, was not in the top three.

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Other NRG nods include skuba’s third place in Sentinel of the Year, despite only having played during Stage 2 after joining from Cubert Academy. Strangely, the Sentinel award shows evidence of being weighted to Stage 2 — as seen by skuba’s appearance — while the winner, leaf, did not play a single match during the event due to his illness-induced absence.

The likeliest explanation for NRG’s performance in the awards is their VALORANT Champions run. Players such as mada and brawk, the latter crowned Champs finals MVP, performed impeccably in Paris, and the pair were both voted in the top three of the league’s Player of the Year. Only aspas placed ahead of them.

While some would argue that it’s fair for international performances to impact regional awards voting, particularly when such performances are particularly noteworthy in either direction, the voting criteria in these end-of-year awards supposedly instructed otherwise.

The official post revealing the award winners states that the voting panel, which included the broadcast team, players, coaches, costreamers, and third-party media, was ‘asked to consider league performance over the course of the entire season when determining their votes.’