Participating teams, broadcast talent and ticketing info have been announced for Manchester’s Valorant Red Bull Home Ground.
As an official part of the Valorant Champions Offseason Tournaments and returning to the vibrant city of Manchester for its third iteration, eight of the world’s top teams will battle it out to be crowned champions in a unique ‘Home and Away’ format from December 9th-11th 2022.
Red Bull Home Ground – which was announced back in August – will also have a $100,000 prize pool.
It will take place in Manchester’s Victoria Warehouse. And fans can also expect some cosmetic content drops throughout the tournament’s gameplay, as well as the Red Bull Home Ground’s cyberpunk aesthetic.
Teams and special guests at Valorant Red Bull Home Ground 2022
Both EU and NA teams will be taking part. So far they include:
- Team Liquid (2021 Red Bull Home Ground champions)
- Team Vitality
- Fokus Clan
- 100 Thieves
- KRÜ Esports
- Cloud9
- Fut Esports
- Heretics
Team Liquid have UK player soulcas, while Fokus has another UK player: YaBoiLewis. And Vitality have UK coach Salah.
The event will also feature special guest appearances from from G2’s female Valorant roster G2 Gozen (who recently lost to Guild in the final of VCT Game Changers EMEA Series 3), as well as Against The Current front-woman and recent desk host of the Valorant Champions Tour, Chrissy Costanza.
Chrissy also starred in the Wildfire 2022 LEC music video starring Vedius and Drakos.
Taking a break from inventing, Valorant Agent “Killjoy” will also make her way to Red Bull Home Ground with her journey to be captured on TikTok.
Broadcast talent at Valorant Red Bull Home Ground 2022
- Yinsu Collins (host)
- Mitch “Mitchman” McBride (caster)
- Tom “Tombizz” Bissmire (caster)
- Ryan “RyanCentral” Horton (caster)
- Beatriz “kaquka” Alonso (caster)
- Adam “Dinko” Hawthorne (caster)
- Luke “xilv” Davis (observer)
- Harrison ‘Hariboe’ Barber-Scargill (observer)
As usual there’s a host of UK and Ireland Valorant broadcast talent on board.
Valorant analyst, commentator and content creator Beatriz “kaquka” Alonso, said: “Red Bull Home Ground brings together some of the world’s top teams, giving us the opportunity to see completely new match-ups and teams partnerships ahead of next year.
“The unique format means we’ll see teams perform and strategise in totally new ways, bringing unpredictability to one of the most anticipated tournaments for some time. I look forward to catching up with the UK Valorant community and fans in the vibrant city of Manchester- see you there!”
What’s the format for Valorant Red Bull Home Ground 2022?
Best-of-three group stages begin on December 9th; two teams will immediately pass to the semi finals, four will pass to the quarter-finals, and two will be eliminated.
On December 10th, the quarter-finals will switch to a best-of-five format, eliminating two more teams. Then on the 11th, fans will be able to catch the four teams battling it out in the semi finals, with the losing teams from each match-up facing an immediate knockout.
This will leave two teams to battle it out in the finals for the Red Bull Home Ground 2022 trophy.
Red Bull Home Ground features a Home and Away structure that puts a curveball on the traditional Valorant format. The two competing teams will select a ‘home ground’ to play on for the open two maps. This structure rewards tactical awareness, map knowledge and wider map usage; if a team wins both opening ‘home’ and ‘away’ matches, they automatically win the tie, while a stalemate will default the tie to the traditional best of format.
Matches will be broadcast on the Red Bull Twitch channel and Red Bull Gaming YouTube channel.
Partners for the event include AGON by AOC, AMD and HyperX.
Red Bull Home Ground tickets are available for purchase 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.
