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The Valorant Champions Tour 2023: LOCK//IN São Paulo is quickly approaching. As we get closer, the excitement for the tournament is only growing. With the event just under a month away, Riot Games released information regarding the format of the tournament.
Riot Games has announced that the tournament will be a single-elimination event which has gotten a large reaction from the community. Single elimination rewards teams that execute a minimal amount of mistakes, one thrown round could cost you your entire tournament life. While the added stakes are, of course, more exciting, some argue that the excitement comes at the cost of development, as many of the teams attending the event will be starting new rosters that will not have a ton of time to practice and learn to gel as a team.
The way the format is set up means that 16 teams will also be paying to send their players to Brazil to play a single match. The nightmare of devoting all that time and energy to travel and practice just only to get to play two maps will be a devastating reality for many teams, something Riot is aware of as they don’t plan to get rid of non-single elimination formats in the future.
Format
Riot Games started by announcing that they had invited two more teams to the tournament, both of which were from China, increasing the number of participating teams to 32. Ten teams from the Americas, EMEA, and Pacific regions qualified and will be participating in the LOCK//IN tournament.
Americas: 100 Thieves, Cloud9, Evil Geniuses, FURIA, KRÜ Esports, Leviatán, LOUD, MiBR, NRG, and Sentinels.
EMEA: Fnatic, FUT Esports, Giants, Karmine Corp, Koi, NAVI, Team Heretics, Team Liquid, Team Vitality.
Pacific: DetonatioN FocusMe, DRX, Gen.G, Global Esports, Paper Rex, Rex Regum Qeon, T1, Talon Esports, Team Secret, ZETA Division.
China: EDward Gaming, FunPlus Pheonix
The teams were separated into two 16 groups based on the region in a way that would create as many interregional matchups as possible. Each group was then placed into a bracket based on a random draw.
Matches will be best of three until the finals of each group which will be a best of five. The two group winners will then play each other in another best of five. The bracket is single elimination, meaning if you lose a single match of Valorant, you go home.
Schedule
The way the tournament is scheduled is that one group (Alpha) will play up until it has two teams remaining February 13-19th. Then the second group (Omega) will play its matches February 22-27th. The final four teams will conclude the tournament with matches played March 2nd-4th. All times are listed in Central Time.
14 February
11:00 AM – KOI vs NRG (Alpha – Round 1)
2:00 PM – DetonatioN FocusMe vs Giants (Alpha – Round 1)
5:00 PM – Gen.G vs LOUD (Alpha – Round 1)
15 February
11:00 AM – FunPlus Phoenix vs Karmine Corp (Alpha – Round 1)
2:00 PM – BBL Esports vs DRX (Alpha – Round 1)
5:00 PM – Cloud9 vs Paper Rex (Alpha – Round 1)
16 February
11:00 AM – Evil Geniuses vs Team Heretics (Alpha – Round 1)
2:00 PM – MIBR vs Talon Esports (Alpha – Round 1)
18 February
11:00 AM – TBD vs TBD (Alpha – Round 2)
2:00 PM – TBD vs TBD (Alpha – Round 2)
19 February
11:00 AM – TBD vs TBD (Alpha – Round 2)
2:00 PM – TBD vs TBD (Alpha – Round 2)
20 February
11:00 AM – TBD vs TBD (Alpha – Quaterfinal)
2:00 PM – TBD vs TBD (Alpha – Quaterfinal)
23 February
11:00 AM – Team Liquid vs Team Secret (Omega – Round 1)
2:00 PM – Natus Vincere vs KRÜ Esports (Omega – Round 1)
5:00 PM – ZETA DIVISION vs Leviatán (Omega – Round 1)
24 February
11:00 AM – Team Vitality vs Global Esports (Omega – Round 1)
2:00 PM – FUT Esports vs Rex Regum Qeon (Omega – Round 1)
5:00 PM – 100 Thieves vs EDward Gaming (Omega – Round 1)
25 February
11:00 AM – Sentinels vs Fnatic (Omega – Round 1)
2:00 PM – T1 vs FURIA Esports (Omega – Round 1)
26 February
11:00 AM – TBD vs TBD (Omega – Round 2)
2:00 PM – TBD vs TBD (Omega – Round 2)
27 February
11:00 AM – TBD vs TBD (Omega – Round 2)
2:00 PM – TBD vs TBD (Omega – Round 2)
28 February
11:00 AM – TBD vs TBD (Omega – Quaterfinal)
2:00 PM – TBD vs TBD (Omega – Quaterfinal)
March 3
11:00 AM – TBD vs TBD (Semifinal)
March 4
11:00 AM – TBD vs TBD (Semifinal)
March 5
11:00 AM – TBD vs TBD (Grand Final)