The main event of the year in Valorant, the world championship, has come to an end. For almost 3 weeks, we followed the main tournament, which had everything that esports fans love. Exciting matches, emotions, presentations, and much more created by Riot Games along with professional players. Today we'll recall what made the 2023 world championship memorable.

Triumph of the Chinese Region and Teams

The first thing that comes to mind is the unexpected performance of the teams from China and the attention given to the region, and there are certain reasons for this. Firstly, Valorant officially launched in China only a few months ago and will join other VCT competitive regions only next year. You can read more about this in our material. Also, during the championship, it was announced that one of the Masters series tournaments would take place in Shanghai, indicating Riot's focus on this newly formed region. The performance of Chinese teams cannot be overlooked, because, despite not securing prize spots, the majority of participants were impressive. Three teams from China participated in the current championship - FunPlus Phoenix, Bilibili Gaming, and EDward Gaming, with the latter two achieving success. Despite this being Bilibili Gaming's first world championship and EDward Gaming underperforming in international tournaments this season, both teams made it to the playoffs. This is an excellent indicator for inexperienced teams, suggesting that in the future, we might see the dominance of the Chinese region in Valorant, similar to Riot Games' other title, League of Legends.

EMEA Region's Failure

It was also unexpected that European teams largely underperformed at this championship, and here's why. Out of the five teams from the EMEA region, only Fnatic performed well, whereas NAVI, Team Liquid, and Giants didn't even make it out of the group stage, and FUT Esports left the tournament in the early days of the playoff stage. "The Oranges," on the other hand, were the main favorites of the tournament, but even they ended their run after the lower bracket semifinals. As a result, most playoff matches featured teams from the Americas and Pacific regions, and none of the three finals: upper/lower bracket and grand final, had European teams. There are no issues with the teams from China, as mentioned earlier, their inexperience makes their results impressive. However, questions arise regarding the EMEA players; why did the region, which had the highest number of teams at the championship (5 from EMEA, 4 from the Americas, 4 from Pacific, 3 from China), perform so poorly? The reason is likely the overestimation of the region itself. Recently, we wrote about how professional teams reacted to Fnatic's defeat, stating that there are no strong teams in EMEA. Before the start of the championship, Twitter user CalCameron conducted research, suggesting that EMEA doesn't deserve an extra slot at events.

Conflicts between players and ambiguous statements

Unsportsmanlike behavior is something that Riot Games has tried to eradicate from their projects, although they don't always succeed. The current championship was no exception; watching the esports scene in August, we frequently saw confrontational situations and taunts towards opponents from various teams. The most notable were the new world champions, Evil Geniuses. The team's captain, Boostio, commented on the Chinese region even before the start of the championship, stating that teams from there are three years behind and will never match up to America. Another champion participant, Demon1, actively mocked his opponents during a match, shooting at the bodies of opponents and used foul language during the post-match press conference, among other unpleasant statements. The Chinese team, Bilibili Gaming, also engaged in conflicts with EG and NRG. The latter even boldly declared that the Chinese would not make it to the playoffs, but ironically, Bilibili players knocked NRG out of the tournament. According to Riot Games, nothing that violated the rules occurred, so no team was punished for their statements or actions, usually settling for simple warnings and condemnation from viewers and fans.

Many innovations and announcement of the upcoming season

Riot Games likes to spice up tournament matches with interesting announcements and presentations of something new, and the current championship was no exception. First of all, a series of events known as OFF//SEASON was announced, in which there will be more than 40 different events. There was also a lot of information about the Chinese region, which you can read above. A new map was announced, a new mode, a patch in which some duelists will be significantly nerfed, a set of skins, and most importantly, details of the upcoming VCT 2024 season were revealed, which will have many updates. Also significant is the release of a skin set dedicated to Valorant Champions 2023. It recently raised more than 40 million dollars, which we wrote about in our material.

An Unexpected Winner

The championship was also remembered for its unexpected winner, the players of Evil Geniuses, a team that ranked top-1 in the American region, and now globally. Although many, including our editorial team, considered EG the underdogs of the tournament for reasons such as their poor performance during the season and the presence of more prestigious teams, this wasn't the case. Before the start of the tournament, bookmakers saw the "Geniuses" as one of the top three strongest teams alongside Fnatic and Paper Rex, giving them odds of 5.50 to win, and they turned out to be right. The team proved stronger than all their rivals, emerged from the group as favorites, and reached the grand final with only one loss to Paper Rex in the upper bracket final. Later, EG took revenge against their opponents, and by winning against them became the reigning world champions for the entire next season. Interestingly, throughout the entire tournament, EG players behaved very arrogantly and allowed themselves ambiguous statements regarding other teams. On one hand, this is unsportsmanlike behavior that shouldn't exist in tournaments of this level, but on the other, the EG players built a compelling image for themselves. This "Villain" image helped the team throughout the championship; many players and viewers negatively viewed the team, hoping that by all genre laws "good always overcomes evil," but that didn't happen. The "Villains" remained true to their "villainous" cause even after their victory, with Demon1 in an interview claiming he's the best player in the game and doesn't care about all the haters – they should respect him.

However, viewers feel about Evil Geniuses, the fact remains: the team proved stronger than the other 15 teams and will now take home the championship trophy and a cash prize of $1,000,000.

Even though Valorant Champions 2023 has ended, there's no need to be sad. Ahead of us are perhaps not as grand-scale events, but there will still be plenty to watch. The offseason, the women's world championship, and in the winter, we might see another major unexpected event, as was the case this year with LOCK//IN São Paulo. Keep following our portal to stay updated on everything happening in the universe of your favorite shooter by Riot Games.

Also read: Demon1 - the best player of Valorant Champions 2023.