Valorant Champions 2021 – Tournament Format, Schedule & Betting Tips
Valorant Champions is the biggest and final Valorant tournament of the year. All official Valorant tournaments in the year lead up to Champions, with teams having to continuously prove themselves to even gain qualification.
Champions is set to kick off from the 1st of December, lasting twelve days. The event is once again set to take place in Berlin, the previous host location of the Valorant Champions Tour Stage 3 Masters.
Watch Valorant Champions 2021 Live:
The two primary ways to watch Valorant Champions officially would be through Youtube or Twitch. Many streamers will offer their own any betting websites have extensions to watch Valorant Champions and to bet on the same page!
Valorant Champions 2021 Teams
The event will see 16 teams compete for the title of Champions. Valorant Champions is by all means a global tournament with representation from seven different regions; North America, Europe, Korea, Japan, South East Asia, Latin America and Brazil.
The following teams earned an invite:
Valorant Champions Tournament Format
Valorant Champions consist of only two stages, the Group Stage and Playoffs. The group stage is expected to last one week from the 1st – 7th of December, while Playoffs will take place between the 8th – 12th of December. As the Valorant scene continues to grow like the League of Legends scene, it is likely an additional stage will be added in the future (play-in stage).
Group Stage
The sixteen teams will be split into four groups of four. In a Best of 3 double elimination format, two teams from each group will advance to playoffs. In the group stage, there will be 5 matches played in each group; 2x Opening matches, 1x Winners match, 1x Elimination Match and 1x Deciders match.
- Opening match: The winners will advance to the Winners match, while losers are sent to the Elimination match
- Winners Match: The winners will advance to Playoffs, while losers are sent to Deciders match
- Elimination match: The winners will advance to the Deciders match, while losers will finish 13th – 16th place.
- Deciders Match: The winners will advance to Playoffs, while the losers will finish 9th – 12th place.
Playoffs Stage
The eight teams that advanced from the Group stage will play in a Best of 3 single elimination format until the Grand finals. Given the more forgiving nature of a double elimination bracket, some have called Riot games to adopt such format in Playoffs of major events (link to https://www.esports.net/news/should-worlds-go-the-way-of-ti-and-make-a-double-elimination-bracket/)
The grand finals will be a Best of 5.
VCT Champions Prize pool
Being the biggest Valorant event of the year, it is only fitting Valorant Champions would host a correspondingly large prizepool. Riot has currently set the prize pool of champions at $1,000,000 USD. This amount may rise if Riot introduces any Valorant Champions themed skin line or other in-game items, a practise Riot has a history of using to crowd fund large events like the League of Legends World Championship.
Valorant Champions 2021 Schedule
All the action starts on December 1st 2021, and will continue for twelve days. The full match schedule can be seen in the image below:
Valorant Champions 2021 Schedule
Betting on Valorant Champions
With Valorant already being one of the hottest games on esports, there is no doubt there will be many options to bet on Valorant Champions. While this would mean highly competitive odds, it is also important to only visit trusted betting operators to ensure a worry-free and enjoyable betting experience. View our list of the top Valorant odds available for this event.
New to Valorant betting? Learn all you need to know about Valorant betting in our guide to all things Valorant betting. There are also numerous bonus bet offers for new users which can be extremely lucrative for new punters, with many of the top esports betting sites offering a 1:1 bonus bet deposit offer.
We keep a separate Esports News article for betting analysis and our match predictions. If you want our take on things, head over to Valorant Champions 2021 Match Predictions.
History of Champions
The 2021 Valorant Champion is the first iteration of Valorant’s biggest esports tournament. Valorant had only officially been released on the 2nd of June 2020. Riot initially used a gradual development process for the Valorant esports scene. At first, privately organised events were welcomed to kickstart the scene, before moving on to joint partnerships like First Strike, before the launch of the Valorant Championship Tournament. Considering the announcement of the Valorant Championships Tour (VCT) in November of 2020, all VCT tournaments to date has led up to this first ever Valorant Champions event.
Tournament Invite system
The Valorant Champions Tour is the official series of the competitive Valorant scene. Qualifying for and winning Valorant Champions is the primary goal of all teams. The Valorant Championship Tour is split into 3 primary stages of competition; Valorant Challengers, Valorant Masters and Valorant Champions.
Teams who competed throughout 2021 would gain Valorant circuit points for winning Valorant Challenger playoff events and through the Masters level events. The primary qualification seeds for the Valorant Champions event will then be determined through the teams with the highest points in their region. For teams that fall slightly short of qualifying through circuit points, there is one final chance event for each major region, directly qualifying the winner to Valorant Champions. Additionally, the winner of the VCT Masters Stage 3 would also gain a direct qualification to Champions.
Invites
- 1x Masters Berlin
- 2x NA Circuit Points
- 1x KR Circuit points
- 2x EMEA Circuit points
- 1x JP Circuit points
- 2x BR Circuit points
- 2x SEA Circuit points
- 1x LATAM Circuit points
- 4x Last Chance Regional Qualifiers
Star players at Valorant Champions 2021
Tenz – All eyes on are Sentinels Tenz, likely the biggest name in Valorant given his ability to single-handedly carry games. Tenz has one of the, if not the best aim in Valorant, with his sheer mechanical ability to clutch key moments making TenZ a top star.
Redgar – While Redgar may be meme’d for his funny posture, there is no doubt Redgar is an impeccable player. Being the in-game leader of Gambit Esports, the recent winners of Masters Berlin, he is the brains of the currently best Valorant team.
BuZz – Being the primary duelist of Vision Strikers, BuZz strikes fear in everyone when he gets on a roll. While his consistency could certainly improve, his aggressive playstyle makes him a key player to watch out for in Valorant Champions.
