VALORANT Challengers tournaments in eight different Pacific subregions all came to a close on June 4 as teams locked their place into the VCT Ascension tournament later this year.
After two months of play, the tier-two tournaments in Korea, Japan, Malaysia and Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Hong Kong and Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam each crowned a champion with the final two leagues, Oceania and South Asia, due to end next weekend.
After an initial group stage that ran until the middle of May, the last few weeks have seen a double-elimination bracket take place in each competition. The winner of each tournament won around $15,000 USD—the exact figure varies between countries—and crucially a spot in the Ascension Pacific event due to take place from June 28 to July 9 in Bangkok, Thailand. Here, the champion will win a place in the VCT franchise league for the 2024 and 2025 seasons meaning a lot is on the line.
Related: Challengers Ascension will add three VCT orgs—but teams will have to earn it
Across these eight tournaments, the most exciting match came in the Japan Challengers grand final, where Jadeite and SCARZ met after the two teams tied on points during the group stage. Jadeite went on to claim the win in the upper-bracket final, with SCARZ forced to make a detour through the lower bracket.
SCARZ would draw first blood in their grand final rematch, with Jadeite’s reverse sweep attempt swiftly cut down by Russian duo Maksim “Jemkin” Batorov and Savva “Kr1stal” Fedorov, with the Japanese organization booking their ticket to Ascension.
Despite having a two-map ban disadvantage, SCARZ won the first two maps in scorelines of 13-7 and 13-9 before Jadeite came back with 13-6 and 14-12 wins to reach map five. In each of these maps, Jemkin had notched no fewer than 19 kills with him losing map four despite securing 34 kills to just 18 deaths.
Jemkin was by far and away the best player on the server across the five-map grand final, recording an incredible 115 kills across 109 rounds played.
With this, SCARZ—a team consisting of two Russian, one Filipino, and two Japanese players—were crowned the Japan Challengers victors, and are strong favorites ahead of the promotion tournament in Thailand.
Jemkin and Kr1stal aren’t the only Russian players in hot form in the Pacific region. All eyes have been on Paper Rex’s Ilya “something” Petrov, who finished as the deadliest player in the VCT Pacific League this year. However, it’s looking increasingly unlikely the star Russian will be able to attend VCT Tokyo Masters in mid-June due to travel documentation issues.
Related: Paper Rex officially bench fan-favorite player ahead of VCT Masters Tokyo
Elsewhere, the Korean Challengers tournament title was won in convincing fashion by Dplus who beat SLT 3-1 in the final. SLT themselves were a surprise feature in this final as after finishing the league in fifth place they knocked out the third and second-seeded teams in the lower bracket to face off against Dplus. While they took map one, their hopes for a fairytale underdog run ended very quickly as they failed to win more than six rounds on Lotus, Pearl, and Ascent.
Featuring the likes of Jung “Esperanza” Jin-cheol, Park “allow” Sang-wook, and Kim “Lakia” Jong-min, Dplus is bringing plenty of international VALORANT experience to the table and will no doubt be pushing for a spot in the VCT Champions Tour.
Another team to watch out for at Ascension will be the Indonesian Challengers winners BOOM Esports, with this being the same organization and core lineup that competed at Champions 2022. While they did go out in last place after losing to OpTic Gaming and ZETA DIVISION in the group stage, they did beat some of the best teams in their region to qualify for the event via the last-chance qualifier.
Related: BOOM Esports CEO speaks out following VALORANT partnership snub
Elsewhere, XERXIA, Fancy United Esports, Bleed eSports, ONE Team, and NAOS Esports won the Challengers tournaments for Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and the Philippines respectively, gifting them spots alongside BOOM, SCARZ, and Dplus at VCT Pacific Ascension.
The final two teams will be an Indian-majority team from Challengers South Asia and an Aussie-majority lineup from Challengers Oceania, with both tournaments coming to a close on June 10.
