The Americas remains the most popular competitive region in Valorant, and most viewers are waiting for the start of the competition in this region. Despite this, the season in the American league is one of the last to start. Today, after the articles about EMEA and China, we will tell our readers all the details about the upcoming VCT 2025: Americas Kickoff, as well as the teams that we believe will perform better or worse during the tournament.
General information about the tournament
VCT 2025: Americas Kickoff is one of the four regional tournaments that qualify for the first Masters in 2025. The event features 12 partner teams, and is organized by Riot Games without any third-party partners, as it is in the Chinese region.
Date and format
The event will take place from January 16 to February 8, 2025, in LAN format in Los Angeles, at Riot Games Arena. Unlike last year, this year's event will feature only a playoff format, without a group stage. Thus, the teams will compete in the Double-Elimination format, where 2 defeats mean elimination from the tournament. Most matches will be played up to 3 wins, and the lower bracket final and grand final up to 5 wins.
Participants of the tournament
The event is attended by 12 partner teams from the Americas region. It is worth noting that the number of 12 teams increased only this year, after 2GAME Esports won Ascension 2024 and earned the right to move from the Tier 2 league to the VCT stage. The list of all participating teams is as follows:
Prize pool
As in previous years, Riot Games does not allocate a prize pool for the first regional qualifiers, which means that the teams do not receive any money. Instead, the participants will compete for 2 invitations to the upcoming Masters Bangkok, as well as Americas Points, which are necessary to qualify for the World Championship in the future. The prizes will be distributed as follows:
1st place - Invitation to Masters Bangkok and 3 Americas Points
2nd place - Invitation to the Masters Bangkok and 2 Americas Points
3rd place - 1 Americas Points
4th place - 1 Americas Points
5th-6th place - No prizes
7-8th place - No prizes
9-12th place - No prizes
Information about the teams
After the general information about the tournament, we would like to tell you about some of the teams. Although the competitive season hasn't started yet, we can already guess the position of the teams in the upcoming tournament based on their past results and transfers. Below, we will tell you about the main favorites and outsiders according to our editorial staff.
Tournament favorites
In our opinion, two teams can be called the main favorites of the tournament, Sentinels and Levaitan. Although the former lost two key players, they invited no less experienced professionals who have already trained together during the offseason. Therefore, the team will not have any problems with chemistry. As for Leviatan, they also lost their duelist, but he was replaced by the world champion Demon1, whom many call the best in the world. Therefore, we can say for sure that Leviatan has not weakened and will surpass their results next year.
Tournament outsiders
As well as the favorites, there are several teams that look the weakest against the rest. According to our editorial team, these are 2GAME Esports and FURIA Esports. The first team will start its performance on the VCT scene only this year, and most likely the main problem for them will be the lack of experience in fighting the strongest teams in their region. FURIA Esports, on the other hand, looks like an outsider solely because of its roster. Last season, the team showed rather poor results, and even so, they did not change the core of the team, and most of the participants remained the same. From this, we can conclude that the team will repeat its performance in 2024.
The dark horse of the tournament
In conclusion, we want to tell you about a team that we believe is a dark horse and a rather underrated team so far, and that is MIBR. The club showed very mediocre results in 2023-2024, but since 2025 they have undergone many changes. The team was joined by one of the best duelists in the world, aspas, who is rumored to have formed a new team himself and picked up all the other players. Therefore, our editorial team is confident that after two years of failures, MIBR with a renewed lineup is the main surprise of this tournament.
VCT 2025: Americas Kickoff is just the beginning of a new competitive season, but there are many more interesting international events ahead. You can follow all of them right on our website in the tournaments section, where you will find all the latest information about the Valorant professional scene.
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