The biggest takeaways from the VALORANT Champions tournament

VALORANT Champions and the 2021 VALORANT Champions Tour is now over. The first full year of VALORANT esports is in the books, and there’s plenty to look back on, but Champions told a very different story from what most were expecting. Here are six takeaways from the final VCT tournament of the year.

EMEA reigns supreme

If there was any question about whether EMEA or NA was better at VALORANT, Champions certainly answered that. All four EMEA teams at the tournament -- Acend, Gambit Esports, Team Liquid and Fnatic -- went 2-0 en route to No. 1 seeds in their respective groups, and all but Fnatic reached the semifinals. The final was between two EMEA teams, and of course, Acend, an EMEA team, won. EMEA teams went 11-1 against teams from other regions, with the one loss being to a remarkable team from Latin America. All of this was surely made sweeter by the fact this tournament was held in Europe. EMEA teams will likely be stronger than ever next year, and teams from other regions will have to improve to keep up.

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KRÜ make a cinderella run to the semifinals

KRÜ pulled off the upset of the tournament when they beat Sentinels to eliminate the Reykajvík champions and send themselves to the playoffs. Suddenly, everybody was wondering who this team, founded by Argentine soccer star Sergio Agüero, was. It was the first victory for the Latin American team against any team from NA or EMEA. They followed that up with an even bigger upset over Fnatic in the quarterfinals. And they nearly reached the final after losing one of the most exciting OT VALORANT maps ever to Gambit Esports. This was quite possibly the best performance by any Latin American team at an international esports event.

KRÜ were the story of the tournament. By the semis it seems the entire world outside of Europe was rooting for KRÜ, and in tongue-and-cheek fashion, many in NA were trying to claim the South American team as one of their own because of NA’s disappointing performance at the tournament. KRÜ’s run certainly should convince Riot to give Latin America a second spot at international events in 2022.

NA teams disappoint

Queue up all the memes about North American teams falling flat on the international stage. After going toe to toe with teams from EMEA at Masters: Reykjavík and Masters: Berlin, North American teams were outclassed at Champions. Cloud9 Blue beating Vision Strikers to make it to the playoffs was NA’s signature win at the tournament, and beyond that there are few positives the region can point to.

Reykjavík champions Sentinels and Berlin runners-up Envy didn’t even make it out of groups. Cloud9 Blue lost in the quarterfinals to Team Liquid. It wasn’t just that NA went 0-4 against EU teams. Sentinels were eliminated by Latin America’s KRÜ, and Envy were eliminated by Southeast Asia’s X10 CRIT -- two scenarios that would have seemed unthinkable entering Champions. A lot of credit goes to those two teams, and leads into the next takeaway from Champions.

Read more: Top 10 moments from VALORANT Champions

Regions outside NA and EMEA rise up

Both previous Masters tournaments featured NA and EMEA teams dominating. At Champions, teams from Brazil, Latin America and Southeast Asia appear to have leveled up. KRÜ’s accomplishments are noted above, so let’s focus on Brazil and Southeast Asia here.

X10 CRIT beat Envy in an elimination match to reach the playoffs. It was the first victory by them against any NA or EMEA team. Both X10 and Team Secret challenged Masters: Berlin winners Gambit Esports, each taking a map from them. Brazilian teams like Vivo Keyd, FURIA and Team Vikings all challenged top teams from EMEA and NA. If not for being penalized for an illegal Cypher cam against Acend, Vivo Keyd might have beat Acend. Vivo Keyd looked impressive in that match, and who knows how the rest of the tournament would have played out for them if they had won.

Sentinels and KRÜ carrying viewership

The grand final between Gambit and Acend set a new record for highest peak viewership of a VALORANT match with 1,089,068, according to Esports Charts. It surpassed the previous record of 1,085,850 set in the Masters: Reykjavík final between Sentinels and Fnatic. Imagine if the final had been between Sentinels and KRÜ? Sentinels have been involved in seven of the top 11 most watched VALORANT matches according to peak viewership. KRÜ’s run to the semifinals combined with all of the Spanish-speaking world seemingly behind them gave them three of the top five most-viewed matches at Champions. With popular Spanish streamers Ibai “ibai” Llanos and David “TheGrefg” Cánovas Martínez hosting watch parties, their semifinal match against Gambit brought in over 1 million viewers.

Clearly, VALORANT esports needs viewers to tune in for more than just Sentinels matches to continue to set new records in 2022. However, with such a large Spanish-speaking audience around the world and the popularity of Spanish streamers, having multiple Latin American (or Spain-based) teams involved and competitive at international VALORANT competitions in 2022 would bode well for the game.

One gigantic wild card is China. Chinese teams were not involved in 2021, but if they participate in some international LANs in 2022, the numbers for next year and beyond could dwarf what we saw this year.

Controversy

The tournament was marred by controversy after Vivo Keyd player Jonathan "JhoW" Glória used an illegal Cypher cam during Map 3 on Breeze against Acend. This was noticed by people on social media and reported by Upcomer but apparently missed by referees during the game, which ended with a 2-1 victory for Vivo Keyd.

Later that day and in the early morning hours in Berlin after many of the players had gone to sleep, Riot Games issued a ruling granting seven rounds and the map and series win to Acend. It was fair based on previous rulings against other teams that had used the same exploit. However, there was an outcry on social media, especially by Brazilian fans, and the player who used the exploit claimed he didn’t know what he did was illegal. Riot then reversed course -- which appeared to many to have been in response to the outcry -- and had the two teams replay the map with Acend having a seven-round advantage.

Although many were unhappy with the original ruling because it erased what would have been a feel-good story about a strong Brazilian team, it was ultimately the correct ruling based on Riot’s own precedent. Obviously, patching up the exploit so that it can’t be used or a referee seeing it during play and pausing the game is ideal, but if that doesn’t happen, it is up to Riot to determine what is fair.

Lead image credit: Riot