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Riot Games has today announced the official tournament details for Lock/In, the largest event in the history of the Valorant Champions Tour (VCT).
From February 13th to March 4th 2023, 32 of the best teams in the world will battle it out at the Ginásio do Ibirapuera in São Paulo for three weeks of competition.
See the Valorant tournament schedule and upcoming Valorant matches on egamersworld.com here.
Lock/In VCT Teams
Lock/In will see every team from the Americas, Pacific and EMEA Valorant International Leagues, as well as two invited representatives from China.
EU teams include London-headquartered Fnatic and more.
The Valorant Champions Tour Lock/In teams are as follows:
| AMERICAS Teams | PACIFIC Teams | EMEA Teams | Invited Teams from China |
| 100 Thieves | Detonation Gaming | BBL Esports | EDG |
| Cloud9 | DRX | Fnatic | FPX |
| Evil Geniuses | Gen.G | FUT Esports | |
| FURIA | Global Esports | Giants | |
| Kru Esports | Paper Rex | Karmine Corp | |
| Leviatán | Rex Regum Qeon | KOI | |
| LOUD | T1 | NAVI | |
| MiBR | Talon Esports | Team Heretics | |
| NRG | Team Secret | Team Liquid | |
| Sentinels | ZETA Division | Team Vitality |
Format for the Valorant Champions Tour Lock/In tournament
To accommodate the largest number of teams Riot Games has hosted at a single Valorant Champions Tour event, the tournament will use a single elimination format. Subsequent events will return to a double elimination format.
Riot said: “To maximise the number of inter-regional matches at Lock/In, a random draw process was implemented that paired teams from different regions in the first round, while also maximizing the possibility of inter-regional matches for the second round.”
First, regions were paired into 16 first round match-ups, with each match-up consisting of two team slots.
Second, the 16 match-ups were distributed across two sides of the single elimination bracket to maximize inter-regional matches for the first two rounds. For this event, the two sides of the bracket will be referenced as Alpha & Omega.
Finally, a random draw assigned each of the 32 teams a number from 1-10 that corresponded to their region and an already placed team slot, resulting in the final bracket.
Schedule for Lock/In
Lock/In will consist of three stages of competition:
- Alpha Matches – February 13 -19
- Alpha Matches will play out until two teams remain.
- Each match will be a Best-of-Three.
- Omega Matches – February 22 – 27
- Omega Matches will play out until two teams remain.
- Each match will be a Best-of-Three.
- Finals Stage
- The remaining four teams play through the Semifinals and Finals until a champion is crowned.
- Matches in this stage will be Best-of-Five.
There’s more on the Valorant Esports website.
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.
