VALORANT Champions Tour Masters Reykjavik preview

What is the VCT: Stage 2 Masters – Reykjavik?

The VALORANT Champions Tour: Stage 2 Masters is the second Masters event on the official competitive calendar and will be the first VALORANT event taking place in-person on LAN since the game’s inception.

10 teams, representing regions from around the world, will be competing in Reykjavik for the chance to be crowned Stage 2 Masters Champions, earn coveted points toward the end-of-year Champions tournament, and secure a share of the $600,000 prize pool.

The VCT: Stage 2 Masters – Reykjavik will be taking place from May 24 – May 30, 2021.

VCT: Masters Reykjavik tournament format

The event will be taking place as a double-elimination bracket with the top-seeded teams from North America and Europe, Sentinels and Team Liquid, automatically seeded into the second round.

The second-seed teams from North America and Europe, Version1 and Fnatic, will be facing the representatives from Argentina and Japan, KRU and Crazy Raccoons, in an additional upper-bracket play-in round.

Teams were drawn randomly into the upper bracket, with the exception that teams from the same region could not be matched against each other in the opening rounds. The double-elimination bracket allows a team to be defeated twice before being eliminated from the tournament.

Each match at the VCT: Masters Reykjavik will take place as a best-of-three (Bo3) series up until the Grand Final which will be played as a best-of-five (Bo5).

Find a visual breakdown of the double-elimination bracket here.

VCT: Masters Reykjavik teams & prize distribution

There are ten teams participating at the VCT: Stage 2 Masters – Reykjavik with teams from North America, Europe+ (EMEA), Japan, South Korea, Latin America, Brazil and South East Asia (SEA) represented.

North America

• Sentinels (SEN)
• Version1 (V1)

Europe

• Team Liquid (TL)
• Fnatic (FNC)

Brazil

• Team Vikings (VIK)
• Sharks Esports (SHRK)

Latin America

• KRU Esports (KRU)

South Korea

• NUTURN Gaming (NUT)

Japan

• Crazy Raccoons (CR)

South East Asia

• X10 Esports (X10)

The total prize pool for the VCT: Masters Reykjavik is $600,000 with each team earning a share depending on their finishing position at the tournament. The prize pool distribution is as follows:

VALORANT Champions Tour: Stage 2 Masters – Reykjavik analysis

VALORANT esports makes its much-anticipated debut on LAN with the VCT: Masters Reykjavik. Following months of online competition due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Riot Games will officially be hosting its first in-person, international competition for the title since the game’s release in April 2020.

The Masters events were originally envisioned to all take place as international competitions, however, global circumstances limited the Stage 1 Masters earlier in 2021 to regional competition only. The Stage 2 Masters will mark the first time in VALORANT’s short history that international competition is taking place.

The teams appearing in Reykjavik earned their qualification to the event through their respective region’s most recent VALORANT Champions Tour Challengers tournament. You can find out more about how the VCT is structured here.

A new champion will be crowned

The VCT: Masters Reykjavik is set to be an exciting tournament for viewers as they will get to see how well their regional teams fare against international competition. What makes the Stage 2 Masters especially interesting is that most of the Stage 1 Masters Champion teams, except from Brazil’s Team Vikings, Japan’s Crazy Raccoons, and South-east Asia’s X10 Esports, will be participating in the Stage 2 event, having failed to qualify. None of the top teams outlined in our VALORANT Power Rankings, other than Sentinels, will be participating either.

Unsurprisingly, the North America top-seed Sentinels are the favourites at the VCT: Masters Reykjavik given their impressive domestic record of 87 wins and 19 losses representing an 82% win rate, the highest win percentage among competing teams at Reykjavik and the most experienced by number of games played. Star players like Tyson “TenZ” Ngo and Shahzeb “ShahZaM” Khan will be the players to watch from SEN, and there will be particular interest in how “TenZ” performs, given that he is considered one of the best VALORANT players in the world. Anything short of a Grand Final appearance will be a disappointment for the team.

The second seed from North America, Version1, are an unknown quantity going into the tournament, with qualification into the event marking the first time the team has experienced any notable competitive success. The team, led by Anthony “Vanity” Malaspina earned their place by beating NRG, Envy, and Cloud9 Blue in the qualifying Challengers tournament - all teams that would have been considered favoured in each matchup against Version1.

The top representative from Europe Team Liquid (TL) have been on the rise as of late, with the Stage 2 Masters marking their first attendance at a Masters-level event. The team have been in better shape since replacing Adam “ec1s” Eccles with Elias “Jamppi” Olkkonen, and have a 19 – 3 (84% win rate) match record since the change took place. Fellow European team Fnatic, led by Jake “Boaster” Howlett, are also on the rise having beaten notable names like G2 Esports, Oxygen Esports, and Gambit to earn their spot at the Masters.

A surprise participant at the Stage 2 Masters is South Korean representatives NUTURN Gaming (NUT), who qualified for the event by beating DAMWON KIA (DWG) in the Grand Final of the VCT 2021: Korea Stage 2 Challengers tournament, but more notably defeated one of the most dominant teams in VALORANT currently - Vision Strikers (VS) - in the semi-finals. Two names from NUT that fans will want to watch closely are Park “allow” Sang-wook and Seo “Suggest” Jae-young with the latter achieving a 33% Headshot percentage which is comparable to top aimers like Team Liquid’s Adil “ScreaM” Benrlitom.

Much is unknown about the Latin American and Brazilian teams in attendance at the Stage 2 Masters but a number of professionals and analysts have described the regions playstyle as being extremely aggressive and this is reflected by the popularity of the Duelist agent ‘Raze’ in the region. The most promising prospect that could find success at Reykjavik is Brazilian first-seed Team Vikings (VKS) who are reigning Stage 1 Masters Champions of Brazil and have a 37 – 14 (70% win rate) match record.

The final two teams to discuss are the representatives from Japan and South-East Asia, Crazy Raccoons (CR) and X10 Esports (X10). CR could be an interesting team to watch for VALORANT fans as they qualified for the Stage 2 Masters in dominant fashion, beating their closest competitor in the region Jupiter Esports (JUP) 3 – 1 in the VCT: Japan Stage 2 Challenger Finals. X10 are also another team that may surprise at Reykjavik, being a dominant force in the region on a 33 – 3 (91% win rate) match record. Both CR and X10 are Stage 1 Champions in their respective regions and will be looking to showcase their strength on the international stage.

Find the latest VALORANT Champions Tour: Stage 2 Masters – Reykjavik odds here.