VALORANT: Teams to keep an eye on in VCT Masters 1 EU

The Stage 1 main event of the VALORANT Champions Tour will be played from March 12 up to March 21. Let’s take a look at the upcoming competition.
Looking at the format

With the introduction of the VCT, Riot Games set its first step in creating a competitive ecosystem. Chopped into three stages, each stage has qualifiers for the main event called Challengers. Through an open qualifier, the VALORANT developer hopes to showcase the wealth of talent in its game.

This format means there’s a good chance a smaller team has a godlike run through the VCT, or as we saw, the top ranked teams failing to make it to the end stage. Quite a few notable teams didn’t make it through the qualifying stage of VALORANT Champions Tour. Some, like Team Liquid, fell in the Open Qualifiers. Others failed to secure their spot in the Challengers playoffs, like G2 Esports.

VCT Stage 1 will be played in two double elimination groups, with the top two teams of each group punching their ticket to the semifinals. A grand final on March 21 will decide the winner of the EU VALORANT Champions Tour Stage 1 Masters. At the time of writing, teams were not yet seeded into their groups.

The competing teams

Alliance

BanK’s team was the first to qualify for VCT by taking out Wave Esports, a team that’s always on the verge of breaking through, but thus far, haven’t. There’s been one roster swap, with Alexandre “xms” Forté stepping in for Vilius “krea6on” Malinauskas. This will be the first tier 1 VALORANT experience for the newly signed French player, and it remains to be seen how the team has adapted in the short time they’ve played together.

Team Heretics

The reigning First Strike champions. We’ve not seen that much from Team Heretics in the last few weeks. The team has played the qualifier matches it had to in order to get to VCT Stage 1, and besides a surprise loss against Entropiq in Challengers 1, Heretics has won all of the other matches with relative ease.

A side note regarding recent results for Team Heretics; with the exception of their qualifier match in Challengers 2 against OG, they’ve not faced any top tier teams in 2021.

Funplus Phoenix

Led by Kyrylo “ANGE1” Karasov, this European team has had no trouble qualifying for VCT Stage 1. Unlike Team Heretics, FPX met some fierce competition in 2021. Throughout the qualifiers they played against fellow Masters teams Acend (ex-Raise Your Edge) and Alliance.

Despite the competition becoming more difficult by the game, FPX seemingly had less trouble as the qualifiers went on. If they keep up their form, Funplus Phoenix should be considered one of the primary contenders for the crown.

Ninjas in Pyjamas

The Ninjas have only played one BO3 in the last 30 days, two if you count the last 35 days. Both games were against G2 Esports, and NIP won both games. The Masters tournament will give NIP the chance to show they’ve built upon these results. After all, despite not qualifying, G2 is still the number one European VALORANT team. That will most likely change after this tournament. Ninjas in Pyjamas have everything it needs, and knows what it takes to win this tournament.

Guild Esports

The full Swedish lineup is eager to prove itself on the big stage. After failing to qualify for First Strike main event twice, and an early quarter final exit in RedBull Home Ground, the Masters 1 tournament is the perfect opportunity for this top 10 EU team to have a deep run. Ex-CS pro Willian “draken” Sundin will definitely be looking to prove switching to VALORANT was the right thing to do, as his team is currently on a six game win streak.

Dfuseteam

AKA the giant killers. Dfuseteam is responsible for G2 Esports not making it and should be firing on all cylinders to show the VALORANT scene that result wasn’t a fluke.

A couple of days ago, the French organization announced their players are allowed to look for new opportunities at the end of March. With the added pressure of not having an organization to back you, players need to step up and showcase their skills to land another professional contract. This will result in the team either crash-and-burning, or with them being liberated and going deep in the tournament.

Ballista

The Polish team that would do the famous Virtus Plow justice. They qualified after defeating Fnatic in Challengers 3. Although Fnatic has been struggling for some months now -basically ever since they signed with Fnatic- there were very few who thought Ballista would make it to Masters.

Thanks in no small part to Kamil “baddyG” Graniczka, Ballista disposed of the European powerhouse and now find themselves as the odd team out. With nothing to lose and literally everything to gain, they might cause an upset win somewhere along the way.

Acend (ex-Raise Your Edge)

The Raise Your Edge boys have signed with a new organization called Acend. They’ll make their official debut this weekend under their new banner. This lineup has been together since the end of January and debuted during the first LVP Rising Series, where they exited the tournament top 8. It was an upset win against Giants that first gave them notoriety, and gave them the opportunity to sign with Raise Your Edge. Acend will definitely try to enter VALORANT with a bang, and depending on seeding, they might make it out of groups.

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Image Credit: FunPlus Phoenix
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