The VALORANT Champions Tour is a world-wide circuit and as such, has regional VCT Challengers events across the different stages. In VCT Stage 3, teams and regions have mostly wrapped up their regional competitions with the winners moving on to their respective playoffs. Also, those who came away victorious or even in the top four in some regions will have qualified for their regional playoffs for Masters 3 qualification.
Here are all the VCT Stage 3 Challengers winners broken down by region.
Latin America: Six Karma in the north, KRÜ Esports in the south
KRÜ Esports continue their dominant run in the LATAM region, not dropping a single game in their journey to the finals. The team bested 9z Team in the upper finals and qualified for LAS Playoffs. Chilean organization Australs also qualified through the lower bracket.
In the south, Six Karma reigned supreme through the upper bracket. The team 13-0’d Ryze Gaming in the single game quarter finals and did not drop a map en route to qualification. Also joining them in LAN Playoffs are Infinity Esports.
LATAM Stage 3 Challengers 2 starts July 20 with teams vying for the final spots in the playoff tournament.
Brazil: Team Vikings, Gamelanders Blue, Furia and Sharks Esports
Brazil’s path to Masters 3 includes a few different qualification tournaments before teams can battle it out for a ticket for the event. Their Challengers events feed into each other and then into Challengers Finals. But, Challengers 1 does not feed into Challengers Finals, just Challengers 2.
In Challengers 1, Vikings, Gamelanders, Furia and Sharks Esports all qualified in their respective groups to Challengers 2. Vikings and Furia climbed through Group A, with Vikings taking the upper bracket spot. Gamelanders and Sharks duked it out in Group B with Gamelanders moving through the upper bracket.
Brazil’s Challengers 2 main event kicks off July 17 in another group format with a Challengers Final invitation on the line. Furia and Team Vikings are again in Group A while Gamelanders and Sharks occupy Group B.
South East Asia: ONIC G, X10 Esports, Bren Esports and Steal Your Glory
The SEA region is a combination of six different regional VCT Stage 3 competitions. The VCT SEA Stage 3 Challengers Finals will invite 16 winners from the six regions, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Hongkong and Taiwan and Malaysia and Singapore.
As of the end of Challengers 1 across the different regions, only four teams have qualified. Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand are all sending three representatives to the Challengers Finals, so their teams qualify through their first Challengers event. The other three regions will only send two and will be chosen through their Challengers 2 and 3 events.
X10 Esports qualified through the lower bracket in their Challengers tournament. They lost to Need Sponsor 2-1 in the first round and then did not drop another map on their way to qualification. ONIC G, from Indonesia, made it through their bracket without much trouble. They only dropped one map and only had one close game in the finals. Bren Esports, from the Philippians, dropped one map each series they played, but came out with the tournament win against Galaxy Racer 3-1. Lastly, Steal Your Glory qualified from Vietnam without dropping a map through the qualifiers and the main event.
Japan: ZETA DIVISION, Crazy Raccon, NORTHEPTION and BlackBird Ingis
Japan’s VCT Stage 3 format is a mash of North America and Korea. The teams play in a round robin group stage with the top two teams from each group qualifying for Challengers Finals and the bottom teams moving on to Challengers 2.
In Group A, ZETA DIVISION and NORTHEPTION qualified with two wins and zero losses each. The teams can tie in the best-of-two group stage and the two teams split their series. In Group B, Crazy Raccoon and BlackBird Ignis rose to the top. Crazy Raccoon recorded two wins, zero losses and one draw. BlackBird Ignis did not win a single series, but tied each team in their group to qualify.
Japan’s VCT Stage 3 Challengers 2 starts on July 17 with the open qualifier.
EMEA: Acend, Guild, FPX, G2, Oxygen Esports, SuperMassive, Gambit and No Pressure
EMEA is the combination of Turkey, Europe and the CIS regions. For their Challengers Playoffs, eight teams qualify from Europe, and four from Turkey and the CIS regions. From Challengers 1 in Europe, Acend, Guild Esports, FunPlus Phoenix and G2 Esports qualified from the event. The winner of the competition was Acend. G2 claimed second while Guild and FPX finished third and fourth respectively.
In Turkey, Oxygen Esports and SuperMassive Blaze came through their Challengers 1 event. SuperMassive won the tournament after getting sent into the lower bracket by Oxygen 2-0. They would take the finals crown over Oxygen in a 3-1 finals. As for the CIS regions, Gambit Esports and unsigned No Pressure made their way to Challengers Playoffs. Gambit did not drop a map in their Challengers 1 run, beating No Pressure in the upper bracket finals 2-0 and grand finals 3-0.
All three regions begin their Challengers 2 competition on July 20 in the open qualifiers.
North America: Sentinels, XSET, 100 Thieves and Envy
In North America, the top four teams qualify for Challengers Playoffs while the rest of the main event competition will move on to Challengers 2. Sentinels took the Challengers 1 crown, continuing their top play from their Master 2 win. They faced off against fellow qualified team XSET, who defeated them earlier in the tournament, sending them to the lower bracket. Sentinels overcame XSET 3-1 in the finals.
As for the other two teams, Envy made top four after losing to 100 Thieves and powering through the lower bracket. 100 Thieves managed to qualify through the upper bracket before running into XSET and Sentinels.
North America starts Challengers 2 open qualifiers on July 22.
Korea: It’s complicated
Korea’s current VCT Stage 3 system is a long Challengers event with a qualifier and multiple group stages. The 16 qualified teams are currently playing a short bracket stage to decide seeding for the next group stage. The seeding matches continue on July 15 with the group stage kicking off the next day. The top eight teams from the group stage will feed into a single-elimination bracket with the two finalists qualifying for Masters 3 in Berlin.
