VCT Americas Kickoff 2024: Schedule, format, teams and storylines

February 12, 2024

by Brian Bencomo

The VALORANT Champions Tour 2024 is kicking off around the world in the coming days with kickoff tournaments in each of the four regions: Americas, EMEA (Europe), Pacific (Asia) and China. The VCT Americas Kickoff begins this weekend with the 10 returning partner teams and the one team that has ascended from Challengers last year. It should be another exciting year for the top tier of VALORANT esports in North America, Brazil and Latin America. To get you ready for VCT Americas Kickoff, here’s a primer on the schedule and format, teams and storylines to look for this year.

VCT Americas Kickoff schedule and format

Photo credit: Colin Young-Wolff / Riot Games

The VCT Americas 2024 season kicks off this weekend Feb. 16 with the opening slate of games in the VCT Americas Kickoff tournament. The 11 teams have been placed into three groups: two groups of four and one group of three. Each group will play out in a double elimination format with best-of-three matches to determine the teams in each group that will advance to the playoffs.

These are the groups and opening matchups.

Group A: NRG, FURIA, Cloud9, MIBR
Group B: LOUD, Sentinels, Leviatán, 100 Thieves
Group C: Evil Geniuses, G2, KRÜ

Friday, Feb 16

2 p.m. PT -- NRG vs. FURIA

5 p.m. PT -- Cloud9 vs. MIBR

Saturday, Feb. 17

2 p.m. PT -- LOUD vs. Sentinels

5 p.m. PT -- Leviatán vs. 100 Thieves

Sunday, Feb. 18

2 p.m. PT -- G2 vs. KRÜ

Group play will continue on Monday Feb. 19 and the following weekend Feb. 23-25.

The top team in each group will advance to the playoffs, while the second-place teams will play a round robin play-in against each other to determine the fourth playoff team on Feb. 26. The playoff semifinals will be March 2, and the winners will qualify for the first international tournament of the year, Masters Madrid. The VCT Americas Kickoff concludes with the Kickoff final on March 3 to determine the top seed heading to Madrid.

The VCT Americas Kickoff is just the first part of the league’s 2024 season. After Masters Madrid, VCT Americas will have two more stages, with the top three teams after the first split qualifying for Masters Shanghai. After the second stage, the top four teams in VCT Americas overall will qualify for VALORANT Champions. The schedule for these two stages hasn’t been announced yet.

VCT Americas 2024 teams

Photo credit: Colin Young-Wolff / Riot Games

100 Thieves

Peter “Asuna” Mazuryk
Sean Christian “bang” Bezerra
Matthew Dylan “Cryocells” Panganiban
Daniel “eeiu” Vucenovic
Kelden Elric “Boostio” Pupello

Cloud9

Erick “Xeppaa” Bach
Jake “jakee” Anderson
Francis “OXY” Hoang
Anthony “vanity” Malaspina
Maxim “wippie” Shepelev

Evil Geniuses

Alexander Tepchhatraridhi “jawgemo” Mor
Vincent “Apotheon” Le
Derrek “Derrek” Ha
Nicholas “NaturE” Garrison
Phat “supamen” Le

FURIA

Khalil Schmidt “Khalil” Faour Auad
Leonardo “mwzera” da Silva Serrati
Ilan “havoc” Eloy
Vitor Hugo “kon4n” Conceição De Souza
Felipe “liazzi” Galiazzi

KRÜ

Nicolás Martin “Klaus” Ferrari
Marco Eliot “Melser” Machuca Amaro
Angelo “keznit” Mori
Nicolás “mta” González
Fabian Patricio “Shyy” Usnayo

Leviatán

Francisco Alberto “kiNgg” Aravena
Roberto “Mazino” Francisco Rivas Bugueño
Erick “aspas” Santos
Ian “tex” Botsch
Corbin Daniel “C0M” Lee

LOUD

Felipe “Less” Basso
Matias “Saadhak” Delipetro
Cauan “cauanzin” Pereira
Arthur “tuyz” Vieira
Gabriel “qck” Lima

MIBR

João Pedro "jzz" Silva
Leandro "frz" Gomes
Matheus "RgLM" Rodigoli
Arthur "artzin" Araujo
Matheus "mazin" Araújo

NRG

Austin "crashies" Roberts
Victor "Victor" Wong
Max "Demon1" Mazanov
Ethan "Ethan" Arnold
Jimmy "Marved" Nguyen

Sentinels

Zachary "zekken" Patrone
Bryan "pANcada" Luna
Gustavo "Sacy" Rossi
Tyson "TenZ" Ngo
Mouhamed "johnqt" Ouarid
Jordan "Zellsis" Montemurro

Jonah "JonahP" Pulice
Michael "neT" Bernet
Trent "trent" Cairns
Jacob "valyn" Batio
Nathan "leaf" Orf

VCT Americas 2024 storylines

Photo credit: Colin Young-Wolff / Riot Games

The biggest storyline heading into VCT Americas this year is the dissolution of the championship Evil Geniuses roster. With EG reportedly in dire financial straits and exiting other esports, four players eventually left the team after reportedly being in “contract jail” where they would either have to take a pay cut or have another team buyout their contract. Ethan and Demon1 have moved on to NRG, the so-called superteam this year. Crashies and victor remain on NRG and are reunited with Marved. The trio were part of the OpTic team that won Masters Reykjavík in 2022.

EG’s in-game leader Boostio is now on 100 Thieves, which is now being led by Tony “Zikz” Gray, EG’s former assistant coach. The fourth EG player to leave, C0M, is now with Leviatán who have formed a superteam of their own with a mixture of players from all three regions that comprise VCT Americas: North America, Brazil and Latin America. In addition to C0M, the LATAM org signed aspas, the superstar from the LOUD championship team of 2022. They also added tex, the lone member of The Guard who did not sign with G2 in the offseason.

G2 will be making their debut in VCT Americas after acquiring the majority of The Guard roster that won the ascension tournament last year to qualify for VCT Americas this year. They have the advantage of being in a smaller group for VCT Americas Kickoff with a much different EG team. As for EG, their coach Christine “potter” Chi is still confident in her new roster and believes they can channel some underdog magic to fuel them like they did last year. Jawgemo remains on the team, and is joined by four hungry new teammates. The other team in G2 and EG’s group is KRÜ, who unfortunately had to make a roster change in the offseason to replace Santiago "Daveeys" Ruiz, who died. KRÜ made a run late last season to qualify for Champions, so we’ll see if they can start this season stronger.

The top team from VCT Americas last year, LOUD, has retained all of their roster except aspas and should be very strong again this year. The other Brazilian teams, MIBR and FURIA, underwent a lot of changes in the offseason, so we’ll see how improved they are this year. Sentinels once again enter the season with high expectations and drama. PANcada claimed in a recent stream that he is still in Brazil and might not start this year with sixth man Zellsis likely taking his place on the roster. Zellsis came over from Cloud9 making many roster changes after surprising everybody with their strong performance last season before flaming out in the playoffs. Vanity, who was originally on the roster heading into 2023, is back with the org as their IGL.

Lead photo credit: Colin Young-Wolff / Riot Games