All the teams qualified for Nerd Street’s VALORANT Winter Champs Finals

The Nerd Street VALORANT Winter Championship Finals take place Monday through Wednesday, Feb. 7-9, with 24 teams competing for the title of winter champs. Among the 24 teams, 16 have qualified by accruing points throughout the 15 open qualifiers and a couple of regional LANs. Another eight qualified via the Last Chance Qualifier (LCQ). Luminosity Gaming won the 2021 Winter Championship, and Cloud9 Blue won the 2021 Summer Championship. Who will be the next champ? To get you ready for the conclusion of the 2022 VALORANT Winter Champs competition, here’s everything you need to know about the field.

Top 16 in points

• Akrew
• Radiance
• BBG Academy
• Team Assent
• Ex-FLICKBAITERS
• Knights
• TSM FTX Academy
• Renegades
• The Mafia
• Luminosity Gaming
• Pioneers
• The Guard
• 303 Esports
• Third Impact
• Knights Academy
• XSET

Last Chance Qualifier teams

• Complexity
• Evil Geniuses
• NRG Esports
• Moon Raccoons
• Andbox
• Version1
• Zero Marksmen Black
• Built by Gamers

Breaking down the field

Top VCT qualifiers

XSET, Version1, The Guard, NRG

When looking at the field of 24 teams, four teams immediately stand out because they also qualified for the North American Stage 1 VCT main event. After a winter champion is crowned, XSET, Version1, The Guard and NRG will be among the 12 teams competing in the top-level NA circuit from February through March to determine the two teams that will represent NA at the first Masters event in April.

XSET competed in and won one Winter Champs qualifier to secure their place among the field of 24. The Guard also won one qualifier to earn enough points to finish in the top 16. Version1 and NRG both qualified through the Last Chance Qualifier (LCQ). While Version1 also won one of the open events, NRG lost to XSET in the grand final of one of the opens.

XSET and Version1 both qualified for the VCT main event without dropping any matches, and V1 didn’t even drop any maps. They look like the strongest teams in this field, and it wouldn’t be surprising if one of them takes the championship.

Contenders

Akrew, Knights, Luminosity, Andbox

The next tier of teams in the tournament are a couple that qualified for the VCT main event in the second open qulifier and another couple that came close. Akrew were the best team throughout the Winter Championship open qualifiers. They won three qualifiers, one regional LAN, won over 30 matches in a row at one point and amassed way more points than any other team to sit atop the Winter Champs leaderboard. They fell a couple wins short of qualifying for the VCT main event.

The Knights won one Winter Champs qualifier and finished second twice. Unlike Akrew, they did reach the VCT main event. Andbox and Luminosity each won one Winter Champs open and both went far in the first VCT open qualifier. Luminosity broke through to the main event during the second open qualifier, while Andbox fell several wins short.

Dark horses

Pioneers, Radiance, Built by Gamers, TSM Academy

Fittingly, the Pioneers are dark horses. Although Pioneers didn’t win any Nerd Street qualifiers, they did finish either second or third three times and also went far during both VCT qualifiers. Radiance won one qualifier and finished second to Akrew in the VALORANT Fragadelphia Regional LAN.

Built by Gamers made it to the Winter Champs Finals through the LCQ. They didn’t do quite as well as their Academy team throughout the Winter Champs qualifiers, but they only entered one qualifier. BBG fell one map short of qualifying for the VCT main event.

TSM Academy did well throughout the Winter Champs qualifiers. They won one qualifier and finished top four in three others. They did not compete in the VCT open qualifiers, so who knows how far they would have gone, but this team is good enough to have reached the top 32 at least. Brandon Michael "bdog" Sanders recently was picked up by Luminosity, so TSM Academy will have to find a new fifth player to compete with them.

Lead photo credit: Nerd Street