The next Valorant Champions Tour Masters in Tokyo will be a global event featuring the 12 best Valorant teams from all over the world.
Tokyo Masters is the second major international Valorant event of 2023, and will be played across two weeks from the 11th to 25th of June, a month after the conclusion of the 3 major VCT Leagues. The event will primarily be held in the Tipstar Dome located in Chiba, with the final two days of the event set to relocate to the Makuhari Messe Hall for the finals.
As the second biggest Valorant event globally only outshined by Champions, the VCT Masters in Tokyo will be officially broadcasted in multiple languages. The event will almost definitely be casted and live streamed on all domestic VCT channels in their home language, ensuring maximum coverage towards the major event.
Initially, the 2023 Valorant Champions Tour Tokyo Masters was announced to be a 10 team event, hosting the winner from the previous 2023 VCT Lock in Sao Paolo, along with the top 3 teams in each of the major VCT Leagues; EMEA, NA and Pacific. However, given the popularly of Valorant in China, two spots have also been given to the region for the top teams in the 2023 FGC Act 1 Valorant Invitational, thereby giving representation to all the major competitive Valorant regions.
Being a smaller 12 team event, it has been confirmed there will be a double elimination bracket in the Tokyo Masters. This follows wide criticism of the previous international event, the 2023 VCT Lock in Sao Paolo, which had a flat single elimination bracket throughout the entire tournament.
Final details on the format have yet to be fully confirmed, but given there are 12 teams, we will see the Tokyo Masters event split into two separate stages. Firstly, it is highly likely the group stage will split the teams in half, with teams likely playing in a single round robin in their group across best of 3 matches. Following the conclusion of the group stage, playoffs will kick off with the top 3 teams from each group, with the top team in each group also getting a free by round. Playoffs has been confirmed to be a double elimination bracket according to the official Valorant ticket seller’s website. As expected, given the intensity, all matches in the playoffs phase will be a best of 5.
Details have yet to be announced, but as a benchmark the 2022 VCT Masters Copenhagen’s prizepool was at $650,000, which was also split amongst 12 teams. Given Valorant Esports now have leagues parnership in the 3 major regions, it is expected Riot will at the minimum match, but more likely share greater profits with the teams through a larger prizepool.
Source: Valorant Esports
The group stage is expected to be held for a short 4 days from the 11th – 14th of June. Following a day’s break, the first part of playoffs will kick off from the 16th to 21st of June. The finals will then be held across two days, relocating to the Makuhari Messe hall in Chiba from the 24th – 25th of June.
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