Two of EMEA’s brightest Valorant teams have exited the latter stages of the Valorant Champions tournament in Berlin.
Team Liquid fell to fellow European side Acend 2-0 in the semi-final on Saturday, while Fnatic lost 2-1 to KRÜ Esports in the quarter final on Thursday. And the overall tournament was a win for Europe, with Acend beating Gambit 3-2 in the grand final.
Both Liquid and Fnatic have two UK players and one UK coach each – Liquid with L1NK, soulcas and coach Sliggy, and Fnatic with Boaster (pictured above courtesy of Fnatic’s Twitter page), Mistic and coach mini.
While it could be seen as disappointing for the region, Liquid and Fnatic arguably excelled above expectations in the group stage where they each went 2-0, and showed the world that UK and EU talent can compete with the best.
Both teams published tweets on their progress in Valorant this year, with Liquid saying they fought through many challenges this year, and Fnatic saying they gave it their all and are ‘beyond proud’ to have represented the EMEA region at Champions.
Elsewhere, North American side Sentinels made a shock exit after being knocked out of group B with one win and two losses. They finished behind Team Liquid and KRÜ Esports, the organisation of Barcelona footballer Sergio Agüero.
KRÜ were defeated by CIS organisation Gambit 2-1 on Saturday, with the grand final set between Gambit and Acend on Sunday December 12th from 5pm GMT – a final that Acend won 3-2.
Valorant Champions kicked off in Berlin from this December 1st. With 16 of the world’s best teams and a $1m prize pool overall, it’s essentially a Valorant world championship in all but name.
Champions is the climax of the year-long Valorant Champions Tour (VCT) 2021 – a year-long series of tournaments around the world featuring the very best of Valorant esports.
Valorant also features a variety of UK and Ireland talent on the broadcast desk too, including Yinsu Collins, Mitchman, Pansy, Hypoc, Tombizz, RyanCentral and DDK. You can read more about them in our Valorant Champions broadcast talent line-up news post here.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
