The dust from Santiago has barely settled, and the VALORANT Champions Tour is already in motion. VCT 2026 Stage 1 is live: China opened play on March 31, EMEA followed yesterday with its first matches in Berlin, Pacific kicks off today, and the Americas complete the picture on April 10. Across all four international leagues, 48 teams are now fighting for group-stage position, Championship Points, and three regional slots at Masters London this June.
The format is uniform. Every region fields 12 teams divided into two single round-robin groups of six. All matches are best-of-three. The top four from each group advance to a double-elimination playoff bracket, and the top three finishers per region earn their London spots. Championship Points are also on the line, feeding directly into the qualification picture for Champions 2026 later in the year.
There is no easing into this. Every series counts, every map differential matters, and the margin between a London flight and a long wait for Stage 2 is razor-thin.
What Masters Santiago Revealed About VCT Stage 1 Contenders
Nongshim RedForce rewrote the script in Chile. A roster that came through Pacific Ascension just months ago swept Paper Rex 3โ0 in the Grand Final, finishing the entire tournament without dropping a single series. Lee “Dambi” Hyuk-kyu earned Finals MVP honors for his Neon play, and veteran Goo “Rb” Sang-min finally got the international title that eluded him across stints with DRX and Titan Esports Club. Their prize: $350,000 and six Championship Points.
For the Americas, NRG came closest to a trophy, finishing third after a lower bracket run that peaked with a clutch elimination of G2 Esports. G2 themselves reached the top four as well. But FURIA, the Americas Kickoff champions who entered Santiago as the region’s first seed, exited in the 7thโ8th range. That kind of gap between regional dominance and international execution is exactly what Stage 1 will need to resolve.
BBL Esports posted EMEA’s best result at 5thโ6th, while Gentle Mates exceeded expectations by reaching playoffs on their Masters debut. Neither performance was enough to suggest EMEA has closed the distance to the Pacific, a region that has now produced four consecutive Masters champions across different rosters.
Americas Stage 1: The Groups and the Pressure
The Americas league begins on April 10 at the Riot Games Arena in Los Angeles. Group Alpha features G2 Esports, MIBR, Cloud9, Leviatรกn, ENVY, and LOUD. Group Omega includes FURIA, NRG, 100 Thieves, Evil Geniuses, Sentinels, and KRร Esports.
The split is telling. Group Alpha places the Kickoff’s two Middle Bracket finalists, G2 and MIBR, in direct competition again, while Leviatรกn and LOUD will look to reverse disappointing Kickoff campaigns where both went out in the bottom four. Group Omega arguably carries more intrigue: FURIA, the Kickoff winners, sit alongside NRG, the reigning 2025 Champions who nearly reached the Santiago final.
Sentinels recently added Filipino talent Jerrwin to the roster, a move that signals the org is done running incremental fixes. KRร Esports may still be dealing with visa complications that forced them to use substitutes throughout Kickoff. If the Argentine organization cannot field its intended five, Group Omega’s competitive balance shifts significantly.
For LATAM organizations, this stage carries particular weight. Leviatรกn and KRร both finished in the bottom four at Kickoff. Stage 1 is the clearest path to redemption and, more critically, to accumulating the Championship Points necessary to stay in the conversation for Masters London 2026.
FURIA’s Burden of Proof
FURIA’s Kickoff title was the first in the organization’s VALORANT history, built on a revamped roster that defeated Sentinels, G2, and MIBR in sequence. But Santiago told a different story. The jump from regional form to international execution did not translate, and three of FURIA’s players were experiencing their first global LAN.
Stage 1 asks a direct question: was the Kickoff run a peak or a foundation? Five weeks of best-of-threes against NRG, 100 Thieves, and the rest of Group Omega will provide the answer. A top-two group finish would set them up in the upper bracket of playoffs, where the path to London becomes significantly more manageable.
What NRG Needs to Prove
NRG enters Stage 1 as the team with the most international pedigree in the Americas field. Their third-place finish at Santiago was respectable, but the roster knows that anything short of a London qualification would be a regression. The question is whether their lower bracket resilience at Kickoff and Santiago can translate into the kind of consistent group-stage form that avoids survival situations altogether.
EMEA and Pacific: The Early Movers
EMEA’s first Stage 1 matches took place yesterday in Berlin. The opening day featured Fnatic against Eternal Fire, the Turkish organization that inherited ULF Esports’ slot after Riot removed ULF for failing to meet financial obligations to its players. Team Liquid faced Karmine Corp in the second match of the day.
Group Alpha features Gentle Mates and Team Liquid, both Santiago qualifiers, alongside Team Heretics, NAVI, Karmine Corp, and FUT Esports. Group Omega pits Fnatic against BBL Esports, Team Vitality, GIANTX, Eternal Fire, and PCIFIC. The general consensus places Omega as the tougher draw, though EMEA has a habit of producing chaos regardless of seeding.
In the Pacific, where play begins today, Group Alpha is loaded. Nongshim RedForce and Paper Rex join DRX, Gen.G, Global Esports, and Team Secret. If any group across the entire VCT 2026 Stage 1 cycle qualifies as a group of death, it is this one. The Masters Santiago finalists open the stage against rosters that have historically contended for international spots, and the margin for error is minimal.
The Road to Masters London 2026
Three teams from each region will qualify for Masters London, scheduled for June 5โ21. That means only 12 of the 48 competing teams will advance. Circuit points earned in Stage 1 stack on top of Kickoff and Santiago results, so a strong finish here does not just secure a London trip; it builds seeding leverage for the rest of the season.
For the Americas specifically, the math is straightforward. FURIA (4 Kickoff points), G2 (3), and NRG (2 plus 3 from Santiago’s third place) hold the early leads. But Stage 1 awards up to six points for first place, meaning a deep playoff run can overturn everything established so far. Teams like Cloud9, Sentinels, and Leviatรกn are starting from zero, which makes every group-stage win essential.
The next seven weeks will sort contenders from pretenders. And in a season where an Ascension team already holds a Masters trophy, the old assumptions about who belongs at the top no longer apply.
