Valorant Champions 2022 Format And Groups Revealed

Riot Games revealed the group seeding and format for the upcoming Valorant Champions 2022, which is slated to kick off on August 31. However, the season-culminating event announcement was met with disagreement from the esports community.

Riot Games announced the full schedule, a group draw, and format for the Valorant Champions 2022 tournament, which will take place in Turkey from August to September. As the final event of the Valorant season, it will welcome some of the best teams in the world, who will compete for the eternal glory that is winning the world championship title.

As revealed, the Valorant Champions will feature a GSL-style group play, where the 16 participating teams will be divided into four groups of four. All matches will be played as best-of-three, with the top two squads advancing into the next stage.

Eight-team double elimination playoffs will follow the group stage, with all matches – except for the lower bracket finals and the grand finals – played as best-of-three, while the latter two will use a Bo5 format.

According to the announced group seeding, Group A will welcome Paper Rex, EDward Gaming, Leviatan, and Team Liquid. Meanwhile, Group B will feature OpTic Gaming, BOOM Esports, ZETA DIVISION, and LOUD.

Over in Group C, we will see the defending Masters champions FunPlus Phoenix take on KRU Esports, XSET, and XERXIA. But all the attention will be on Group D, billed as the group of death, featuring FURIA Esports, Fnatic, 100 Thieves, and DRX.

Once the group stage ends, the top two teams from each group will proceed into the double-elimination bracket playoffs, where group winners will play the second-placed team from another random group. The knockout stage will proceed until September 18, when the top two teams will duke it out in the grand finals for the trophy and the lion’s share of the prize pool.

Notably, this year’s tournament does not include last year’s finalists in Acend and Gambit Esports, as both failed to make it through the Last Chance Qualifiers.

Shortly after Riot Games announced a new and revamped format for the Valorant Champions, the esports community, mainly the League of Legends fans, expressed its dissatisfaction with the company.

The main complaint is Riot’s unwillingness to adapt the LoL World Championship format, which many fans believe is missing a double-elimination bracket. Although Riot has said that it would consider introducing a double-elimination knockout stage for the LoL event, it has yet to do so.

As noted by the community, a double-elimination format is fairer and creates more hype and the opportunity to create incredible storylines through the lower bracket. Notably, G2 Esports won the LEC 2022 Spring via the lower bracket and would then go on to reach the 2022 MSI finals.

Although fans have been complaining about the lack of a double elimination format in LoL’s premier event, seeing Riot introduce it for Valorant Champions and not for LoL Worlds was hard to swallow.
Interestingly, every LoL region follows the format through its playoffs, which has proven to be highly entertaining for the fans.

The fans also complained about LoL Worlds having a one-week break in the middle of the tournament and the lack of cross-regional play since the LoL World Championship will have only seven best-of series at the event. Meanwhile, Valorant Champions will use a best-of format through the group stage and into the knockout stage, giving the fans a lot more action to look forward to.

It’s highly unlikely that Riot Games will change the LoL World Championship format now, albeit it’s reasonable to see the community outrage, seeing how it promised changes to LoL Worlds format last year. Yet those never came.