After two consecutive Open Qualifiers, the North American VALORANT Stage 1 Challengers’ Playoffs contenders are ready to secure their slots for VCT Masters 1.
Once again, North America is ready to witness a nerve-wracking rivalry as teams like Sentinels, Envy, XSET, 100T & C9 will fight for dominance. The upcoming Masters 1 will be held in April & before that, teams will have to go through the Challengers Main Event. The top four teams from the Playoffs will get to fight for a slot in the Masters 1.
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Upon finishing the Playoffs, the top two teams will qualify for Masters 1. The other teams, except for the finalists, will drop out of the event. However, it’s a double elimination process & teams will have multiple shots at Masters throughout the tournament. Riot’s grouping of these teams might give us an estimate of what we can expect from the event.
NA Challengers Playoffs Groups
According to Liquipeida, the two official groups for the event will consist of the following teams,
Group A:
- 100T
- Cloud9
- Luminosity Gaming
- The Guard
- Evil Geniuses
- XSET
Group B:
- Sentinels
- NRG
- Knights
- Team Envy
- Rise
- Version1
Among the qualified teams, Sentinels, Team Envy, Cloud9 & 100T were invited to participate in the Playoffs. Other teams made their way through the Challengers Open Qualifiers 1 & 2. Needless to say, the recent NA Challengers presented an unforgiving battleground where teams like TSM failed to qualify.
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There will be lower brackets in the Playoffs, providing more opportunities for the teams to withstand the competition. NA Challengers 1 Playoffs will start on February 11th, and VCT will return to NA after a huge break since Champions 2021. The Playoffs will follow a Round Robin format & the total prize pool is $200,000.
