Valorant Champions Tour 2023 (VCT) marks the third edition of the official tournament circuit, organized and run by game developer Riot Games. As the official Valorant competitive circuit, VCT also includes all tiers of professional Valorant, including pro, semi-pro, amateur, and female teams, hosting tournaments across all tiers.
However, while there’s a lot going on in the professional Valorant scene, the top league gets the most attention from both viewers and Valorant betting enthusiasts alike. And to understand how Valorant esports betting works and how to find the best Valorant predictions, it’s first essential to understand the whole VCT system.
The Third Season Of VCT
The Valorant Champions Tour 2023 marked the start of the third official Valorant tournament circuit, which changed everything. After two years of VCT, Riot Games released a detailed five-year plan for Valorant’s competitive scene, starting with a new partnership model for the 2023 season.
Unlike the first two seasons, the VCT 2023 introduced a new partnered league and also completely revamped the path to pro for amateur teams who didn’t get partnered for the season. This also introduced new ways for casual players to enter the competitive Valorant world via Challenger events, designed for new and up-and-coming talent who want to make a name for themselves.
Moreover, the 2023 season added more regions to the scene, namely in the Challenger scene, with more and bigger events and a more structured ecosystem altogether.
Challenger, which served as an entry point into VCT for teams in 2022, will continue to do the same, but to a far greater degree. As of 2023, the Challenger leagues will begin with open qualifiers, which will ladder the teams into two splits, each with weeks of season play.
22 Challenger Leagues to Compete for Regional Championship
Each Challenger league will culminate with a playoff tournament where one team will be crowned as regional champions and earn a spot in the big league, the VCT. With the 2023 season, there are 22 Challenger leagues, including seven in EMEA, four in the Americas, and 10 in the APAC region, divided as:
- EMEA: Northern Europe, Southern Europe, France and Benelux, Dach, Turkey, Eastern Europe, MENA
- Americas: NA, LATAM North, Brazil, LATAM South
- Pacific: South Asia, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore, Korea, Japan, Chinese Taipei and Hong Kong, Philippines, Indonesia, Oceania
All Challenger leagues enjoy very solid coverage with their respective broadcasts and are also a big part of the online Valorant betting scene. So even though most of the attention in the esports betting world is directed to the big league, it’s not difficult to find Valorant Challenger esports odds.
Importance Of Challenger Leagues
Even though the Challenger league is the secondary league in the Valorant competitive world, fans and Valorant esports betting enthusiasts shouldn’t ignore them. As noted, Challenger leagues play a significant role in the Valorant ecosystem, and many of the teams competing in Challenger leagues will eventually compete in big international events.
As of 2023, there are ten partnered teams that will never drop out from the international league. Instead, Riot Games implemented a system where the Valorant competitive scene will continue to grow, as there is no relegation but only promotion from the Challenger leagues.
But it’s important to note that teams competing in Challenger leagues won’t appear in international Valorant Champions Tour leagues in 2023. Instead, they’ll be fighting for a spot in the big league in 2024.
Nevertheless, keeping an eye on Challengers players and teams would be a wise choice for anyone planning to make Valorant Tour predictions, as plenty of players and teams will eventually end up in the international league.
2023 VCT International Leagues
The primary league and the cream of the crop of the Valorant competitive scene, the Valorant Champions Tour international league will feature just ten teams from each of the three regions, who will be competing for the coveted title of Valorant world champions.
The leagues will look similar to Champions and Masters events from 2022 but without open qualifiers. In 2023, qualifying events won’t be needed due to the partnership model, which will see the same ten teams (per region) competing in all major events.
- Pacific: GenG, ZETA DIVISION, DetonatioN FocusMe, T1, Talon Esports, DRX, Global Esports, Paper Rex, Team Secret, Rex Regnum Qeon.
- EMEA: KOI, Karmine Corp, Fnatic, Natus Vincere, Team Vitality, Team Liquid, Team Heretics, BBL Esports, Giants, FUT Esports
- Americas: Cloud9, Sentinels, NRG, KRU Esports, Leviatan, LOUD, FURIA Esports, 100 Thieves, MiBR, Evil Geniuses
The 2023 VCT Season Format
Riot Games has yet to unveil full details about the VCT season, but we know the basics of how it will look in the top league.
The 2023 season kicked off with a new tournament, VCT LOCK//IN, hosted in Sao Paulo, Brazil, as the opening event of the new season. It welcomed all 30 partnered teams in addition to two invited Chinese squads in FunPlus Phoenix and EDward Gaming, who competed for the lion’s share of the $500,000 prize pool and an extra slot at Masters 2023 for their region.
This is the first and only event of the VCT 2023 season that will feature all 30 partnered teams, which won’t be the case with the next event on the calendar – the Masters Tokyo 2023. Masters Tokyo will be the season’s second international event, culminating with VALORANT Champions 2023, used as Valorant’s version of a World Cup. The dates for the latter two events have yet to be unveiled.
Between the major tournaments, there will be regional leagues across the Pacific, EMEA, and Americas regions.
Anticipating Valorant Esports Betting Markets
Since we’re still weeks away from the opening matches of the VCT regional leagues, there are no Valorant esports betting odds available across any bookmaker. However, we can expect markets to open as soon as we crown the VCT LOCK//IN champion on Friday, March 4.
Yet even without esports odds, it’s not tough to figure out which are the top teams heading into the new season. So we can make our Valorant tour predictions ahead of time.
In the EMEA league, Natus Vincere and Fnatic look like the top dogs. Fnatic look to continue to post impressive domestic results, whereas NaVi acquired the core of FPX, which dominated the European scene in 2022.
In the Americas, 100 Thieves, NRG, and Cloud9 look like the strongest squads, fielding proven veterans and top talent from the region. But this could be a very competitive region with LOUD, Leviatan, and Sentinels all standing in their way.
Pacific league has two strong candidates to emerge as the top dogs, including DRX and Paper Rex, fielding some of the best players from the region. The cores of these squads have achieved plenty in 2022 and should continue to do serious damage domestically and on international stages.
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