The main tournament of the year on the professional Valorant scene has ended, and with it, the 2025 VCT season has come to a close. For three weeks, we followed all the matches at VALORANT Champions 2025, and below we will tell you about the most interesting events at the most important event in the entire discipline.

Before we begin, we would like to note that in this article, we will focus on the playoff stage, as we wrote about the group stage immediately after its completion. You can read more about the interesting events that took place in the groups at the following link

NRG – From underdogs to world champions

The first thing worth mentioning is, of course, the unexpected victory of the American team NRG. Before the tournament, the team was considered one of the underdogs due to the lack of significant results during the previous and current seasons. Recall that NRG finished 7th and 8th in the first two qualifying stages in the Americas Kickoff and Americas Stage 1 regions. Because of this, the team did not qualify for any Masters and was generally considered to be quite weak. However, in Stage 2, NRG still took 2nd place and qualified for Champions, but at that point, few believed in their victory.

But at the tournament itself, the situation changed dramatically. NRG easily took first place in Group C, thanks to victories over former champions EDward Gaming 2:0 and DRX 2:1, which allowed them to advance to the playoffs.

In the playoffs, NRG continued to dominate: victories over GIANTX 2:0, MIBR 2:1, and Fnatic 2:0, took the team to the grand final, where it faced Fnatic again and defeated the “orange” team for the second time with a score of 3:2, earning the world championship title.

The path from Tier 2 to the championship

This result is already an incredible achievement for the former underdogs, but if we look at the NRG roster, we can say that this is not just a victory for a weak team, but also a path from the Tier 2 scene to the championship, and here's why.

Although NRG has had a slot in the VCT partner program since 2023, the updated roster is not experienced at all. The fact is that before the start of the 2025 season, the team signed two new players: mada and brawk, and before Champions 2025, another one, skuba. These three players had been competing on the Tier 2 scene until 2025 and had no significant achievements.

• Ethan "Ethan", Arnold
• Sam "s0m" Oh
• Adam "mada" Pampuch
• Brock "brawk" Somerhalder
• Logan "skuba" Jenkins

Thus, the updated NRG roster consisted of three inexperienced rookies, and it can be considered that the majority were Tier 2. However, the lack of experience or lack of results did not stop the new players, and as we described above, the team completely dominated the tournament even with such a Tier 2 roster.

The example of NRG should be a good motivation for other VCT teams, who need to consider paying attention to young tier-2 talents in the future, as they can produce very impressive results.

The quick exit of one of the main favorites of the tournament

Another interesting moment occurred with the favorites G2 Esports, but the situation here is completely opposite. Before the start of Valorant Champions 2025, the team was considered one of the strongest and almost the main contender for victory. This is quite logical, considering that the team showed incredible results during the season, including victories in three regional tournaments and prize places in both Masters events.

• VCT 2025: Americas Kickoff – 1st place
• VCT 2025: Americas Stage 1 – 1st place
• VCT 2025: Americas Stage 2 – 1st place
• Masters Bangkok 2025 – 2nd place
• Masters Toronto 2025 – 4th place

However, G2 was unexpectedly eliminated early in the tournament. The team advanced from the group stage with a 2-1 record but completely failed in the playoffs. A 1-2 loss to Paper Rex sent G2 to the lower bracket, where, after a 1-2 loss to DRX, the team left the tournament in 7th-8th place.

This result is quite mediocre for the former favorites and a team that dominated throughout the season. It is still unknown why such a sharp decline occurred. The main reason can be assumed to be player exhaustion. Constant training throughout the year, victory in three regional events, and prize places in two international events are quite difficult. It is impossible to maintain the highest level without rest, and unfortunately for G2 fans, this period came during Valorant Champions 2025.

The main event of the year ended after three weeks of intense competition and exciting matches. Valorant Champions 2025 became the second most popular event in the discipline. At its peak, the grand final was watched by 1,473,642 viewers simultaneously. However, even this number of viewers is not enough to make it the most popular event in the series. Champions 2022 remains the leader in terms of views, with 1,505,804 viewers watching the final match.