VCT Americas LCQ: Schedule, format and teams breakdown

The VALORANT Champions Tour 2023 season will come to an end next month with VALORANT Champions 2023. Most of the teams from the three VCT regions that have qualified for Champions have already been determined. However, the final qualified teams from the Americas, EMEA (Europe) and Pacific (Asia) will be determined at that region’s Last Chance Qualifier. The winner of the Americas LCQ will join fellow Americas teams LOUD, NRG and Evil Geniuses in Los Angeles next month for Champions.

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The results of the VCT Americas season have determined the seeding going into the LCQ, but all seven teams still have a chance to qualify for the most important VALORANT tournament of the year. To get you ready for the Americas LCQ, here’s a primer on the tournament format and schedule and a breakdown of each team’s chances of qualifying for Champions.

Schedule and format

With seven teams involved in the Americas LCQ, it’s an unusual bracket format, with a mixture of single and double elimination.

The Americas LCQ begins Saturday, July 15, with a matchup between two teams who face the longest road to Champions, MIBR and KRÜ Esports. It’s a best-of-three between the two teams who finished the Americas league at the bottom of the standings. The loser is out, and the winner will advance into the upper quarterfinals.

The two quarterfinals will take place on July 16, with FURIA awaiting the winner of MIBR vs. KRÜ, and Sentinels facing 100 Thieves. These two best-of-threes also are single elimination.

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It isn’t until the upper semifinals that the bracket becomes double elimination. Cloud9 and Leviatán await the winners of the quarterfinals in best-of-three matches that will take place July 17. The semifinal winners will meet in the upper final, while the losers will meet in a lower semifinal. Both of these Bo3 matches will take place July 18.

After a couple days off, the lower final will be on July 22, and the grand final will take place July 23. Both of these will be best-of-five matches.

Which Americas team will qualify for Champions 2023?

The favorite

There’s one team that was head and shoulders above the rest of these teams in the regular season, but stumbled in the playoffs.

Cloud9

Photo credit: Colin Young-Wolff / Riot Games

Everyone thought Cloud9 was a shoo-in for Masters Tokyo. But after losses to Evil Geniuses and NRG in the VCT Americas playoffs, they were out. In hindsight, the dramatic 2-0 loss to Evil Geniuses no longer looks that bad. EG made it all the way to the Masters final and looked like the second-best team in the world. NRG also finished in the top four at Tokyo. Neither of those teams will be in the LCQ, and nor will LOUD. It looks like a wide open bracket for Cloud9 as long as they don’t buckle under the pressure, which might have been an issue in the playoffs. After going 8-1 and looking quite dominant during the Americas regular season, Cloud9 deserve to go to Champions. The question is, can they perform at that same level in some elimination matches? Cloud9 will have the advantage of double elimination and starting the bracket already in the upper semifinals.

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The good, the bad and the ugly

These teams all finished 4-5 and had moments of brilliance intermixed with poor performances and generally had pretty chaotic seasons. Any of them can get hot in the LCQ and string together enough wins to qualify.

Leviatán

Photo credit: Robert Paul / Riot Games

Of all the 4-5 teams from the Americas regular season, Leviatán appeared to have the highest potential heading into the season. They lived up to that potential as they started the season 3-1 with wins over NRG and Sentinels. But then their season took a turn for the worse as with losses in four of their next five games, and they went 0-2 in the playoffs. Leviatán just didn’t seem to adjust well to the developing meta and to other teams. Unlike the other 4-5 teams, they will have the advantage of double elimination from the start of the LCQ as they begin in the upper semifinals. But their 0-2 showing in the playoffs doesn’t inspire confidence that that will be much of an advantage.

FURIA

Photo credit: Colin Young-Wolff / Riot Games

Like Leviatán, FURIA started off the season 3-1 before going 1-4 to end their season 4-5. Unlike Leviatán, they did win one match in the playoffs, which happened to be against Leviatán. Their advantage in the LCQ will be getting an initial matchup against either KRÜ or MIBR, the two bottom teams in the standings. If they win that matchup, they’ll face Leviatán next, whom they’ve already proven they can beat. In fact, they beat them twice -- in the regular season and playoffs. FURIA made it to Champions in both 2021 and 2022 via the LCQ. Gabriel "qck" Lima, Khalil "Khalil" Schmidt and Matheus "mazin" Araújo were there for both LCQ runs, and Douglas "dgzin" Silva was with the team for last year’s run, so this team will certainly be prepared mentally for the high-stakes matchups they’ll encounter.

100 Thieves

Photo credit: Robert Paul / Riot Games

100 Thieves never really got into gear during the VCT Americas season. They couldn’t string together more than two wins in a row, and their season is filled with bad losses, the worst of which was in the final week of the season against MIBR. 100T had a chance to make it to the playoffs with a win but couldn’t get the job done.

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Sean “bang” Bezerra was a bright spot for the team during the season with his knack for coming up clutch. However, despite adding Matthew "Cryocells" Panganiban in the offseason to add more firepower, the team certainly seemed to be missing the kind of high-impact duelist that is present on other top teams in the league. Losing Sean “sgares” Gares as their coach in the offseason also might have negatively impacted the team. Sgares is widely considered one of the best minds in FPS, from CS:GO to VALORANT, and he led the team to Champions last year after winning the North American LCQ. If 100 Thieves want to go to Champions again, they will need to start by getting revenge against Sentinels in a win-or-go-home matchup.

Sentinels

Photo credit: Robert Paul / Riot Games

No team had a more eventful regular season and was under more scrutiny than Sentinels. With all the changes the roster went through during VCT Americas and the coaching change from Don “Syyko” Muri to Adam "kaplan" Kaplan in the middle of the season, it’s hard to assess how good they might be in the LCQ. Of course, there will be a lot of hype around Sentinels as there always is around this very popular team, but it’s not unrealistic to see them winning the LCQ.

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This team is undoubtedly filled with talent from world champions Gustavo “Sacy” Rossi and Bryan “paNcada” Luna to stars like Tyson “TenZ” Ngo, Zachary “zekken” Patrone and Jimmy "Marved" Nguyen. The role issues that appeared to plague the team early in the season, seem to have been fixed once Marved joined the team, and Sentinels ended the season with two wins in a row, including one against fellow 4-5 team FURIA. Sentinels will begin the LCQ the same way they started the season, with a matchup against 100 Thieves. They beat them in Week 1 and could do so again. After that they would face Cloud9, who looked shaky in the playoffs after a dominant regular season. If they win these two matchups, then suddenly Sentinels would be in a very good spot to qualify for Champions.

You’re saying there’s a chance …

These two teams were clearly the worst during the season, but they’re not out of it yet.

MIBR

Photo credit: Tina Jo / Riot Games

MIBR had the most impactful win of the regular season. When they unexpectedly beat 100 Thieves, they sent Evil Geniuses to the playoffs, and well, the rest is history. EG qualified for Masters Tokyo and Champions went all the way to the Masters final. Wouldn’t it be fitting if they somehow qualified for Champions too? Despite having the worst round differential of any team, MIBR had a knack for pulling off surprising wins over more heavily favored teams, like 100 Thieves and NRG. They would have to pull off a string of upsets in the LCQ to qualify for Champions, but stranger things have happened. Their first matchup will be against the only winless team this season, KRÜ. At the very least, they should beat KRÜ to send them forward to a matchup against fellow Brazilian team FURIA.

KRÜ Esports

Photo credit: Tina Jo / Riot Games

They didn’t win any games during the VCT Americas season. How can KRÜ possibly qualify for Champions? They are the longest of the longshots, but they’re arguably better than their initial opponent, MIBR. Yes, MIBR won three matches, but in their losses they looked completely overmatched. KRÜ were always competitive in their losses. KRÜ had so many close losses it’s worth wondering what might have been if they had won a few of those. The high number of tight games indicates KRÜ aren’t that much worse than a lot of the teams in the league. Besides Cloud9, the rest of the LCQ isn't filled with top teams from the regular season. It won’t be easy, but KRÜ shouldn’t be counted out.

Lead photo credit: Tina Jo / Riot Games