VCT EMEA Last Chance Qualifier 2022: Teams, matches, schedule
The schedule and teams for the Valorant Champions Tour EMEA Last Chance Qualifier 2022 have been finalized. Eight teams will fight for the last slot in the Valorant Champions tournament.
The Last Chance Qualifier (LCQ) will be available for EMEA, North America, South America, Asia-Pacific and East Asia. Only one team from each region will qualify for the Valorant Champions, except for SA, which will have two teams available for quality.
The EMEA qualifier will begin on August 7 and end on August 14. As Fnatic and FunPlus Phoenix have secured their spot in the Champions, they will not be participating in the tournament. Instead, G2 Esports, Guild Esports, M3 Champions, OG LDN UTD, Natus Vincere, BBL Esports, Acend, and Team Liquid will compete for the final EMEA slot. The tournament will be using a double-elimination bracket in a series of best-of-three series except for the Lower Finals and Grand Finals, which will use a best-of-five format.
August 7 features two matches. G2 Esports vs OG LDN UTD and M3 Champions vs Acend. The day after will be Team Liquid vs BBL Esports and Guild Esports vs Natus Vincere.
After that, the lower bracket’s first round will begin on August 9, with the second round taking place on August 11. On August 10, the second upper bracket round will take place on August 13. The finals and semi-finals for both brackets will place on August 13, with the grand final the day after.
Fans can catch the tournament on the official Valorant Champions Tour on Youtube and Twitch. There will also be various viewing parties by supported content creators as another method of viewing.
About the Valorant Champions Tour
The Valorant Champions Tour is an 11-month-long competitive structure that anyone above the rank of Immortal 1 in the Valorant ranked ladder can participate. There are three levels of tournaments that players can compete in — Challengers, Masters, and Champions.
Challengers are the basic level of the tournament. Open qualifiers where teams can earn prize money and spots for Masters events. The top four teams from the last Challengers tournament will automatically qualify. The last four slots are filled with the best teams from the online qualifiers, where any team that meets the requirements can enter. Only eight Challengers teams will have the opportunity to compete in the next tier. The prize pools for these events go up to $50,000.
Masters events are equivalent to Majors in other competitive structures. Teams compete over the larger prize pools and the opportunity to earn Valorant Champions Tour Points, which allow teams to qualify for the final tier. Each event in the Master’s tier has 16 teams, with the distribution of each region varying by the tournament. Teams can qualify for Champions events by having the highest points in their region or by winning last-chance qualifiers. Masters event prize pools can reach up to $150,000.
Champions events are the biggest events of the year. It is analogous to The International from Dota 2 or the League of Legends World Championship. The prize pool for the Valorant Champions Tour in 2021 was $1 million, with the first place team earning $350,000. The prize pool for the 2022 Champions has not been announced yet.
