The 2024 Valorant esports season will begin with a kickoff tournament across all four international leagues, where the top two teams from each league will qualify for the inaugural international event: Masters Madrid.
This is China’s first year having its own dedicated league alongside EMEA, Pacific, and Americas. Before 2024, Chinese teams were funneled through VCT Pacific, which often resulted in a lack of representation from the region.
Rather than hosting a unified kickoff tournament involving all teams in the VCT, each VCT league will host its own kickoff tournaments. Following these individual events, the top two teams from each 11-team league will advance to Masters Madrid for the first international event of the year.
Below is everything we know about the VCT China kickoff tournament, including where to watch, the teams participating, and the start date.
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VCT China Kickoff: Stream
The VCT China Kickoff tournament will be streamed on the league’s Twitch and YouTube alongside additional third-party websites. We’ve embedded the Twitch stream below for your convenience.
VCT China Kickoff: Format
All 11 teams will be seeded and split into three groups, meaning one group will feature only three teams. The team with the best performance in the VALORANT China Evolution Series Act 3, EDward Gaming, will be placed in the three-team group and receive a bye to the second round.
The remaining teams will be seeded according to their performance in 2023 and randomly drawn into the available slots. The group stage will adopt a double-elimination bracket format featuring best-of-three matches. The top two teams from each group will advance to the next stage.
The second-place teams from each group will face off in a Play-In Stage and play each other once with the team with the best record, moving on to the Playoff Stage with the top teams from each group.
The Playoff Stage will then crown two representatives for the league at Masters Madrid through a single elimination bracket.
VCT China Kickoff: Schedule
VCT China will start the Kickoff tournament on February 20 and end on March 1 with the Grand Final matchup. The schedule is as follows:
- Group Stage: February 22 – 26
- Play-In Stage: February 27
- Playoffs Stage: March 1 – March 2
Details about the exact scheduling of matches have not been released. When that information becomes available, it will be added.
Group A
| Placement | Team | Record |
|---|---|---|
| – | Trace Esports | – |
| – | TYLOO | – |
| – | FunPlus Phoenix | – |
| – | Nova Esports | – |
Group B
| Placement | Team | Record |
|---|---|---|
| – | JD Gaming | – |
| – | Titan Esports Club | – |
| – | Dragon Ranger Gaming | – |
| – | All Gamers | – |
Group C
| Placement | Team | Record |
|---|---|---|
| – | EDward Gaming | – |
| – | Bilibili Gaming | – |
| – | Wolves Esports | – |
VCT China Kickoff: Teams
Team rosters for VCT China have been revealed, with most of the rosters having finalized during the last week of January. It is expected that the following teams will participate with their signed members at the start of the event.
| Team | Players |
| All Gamers | x3b, Bunt, deLb, Monk, Spitfires, sword9 |
| Bilibili Gaming | whz, Biank, Knight, yosemite, B3Ar |
| EDward Gaming | Haodong, CHICHOO, nobody, ZmjjKK, Smoggy, Muggle |
| FunPlus Phoenix | AAAAY, BerLIN, Lysoar, autumn, Life |
| JD Gaming | jkuro, MarT1n, stew, Viva, YiHao |
| Nova Esports | o0o0o, OBONE, PangH, CB, neveR, GuanG |
| TYLOO | LuoK1ng, ninebody, AakRR, ICE, slowly, hfmi0dzjc9z7, mikiya |
| Titan Esports Club | B1ack, quiye, Shameless, Sztwo, Abo, LockM, Rb |
| Trace Esports | FengF, Flex1n, HeiB, YoU, Kai, cxyy |
| Wolves Esports | aluba, Babyblue, COLDFISH, Cyah, FFs, pl1xx, Spring, Yuicaw |
| Dragon Ranger Gaming | Nicc, TvirusLuke, vo0kashu, Dingwei, TZH, HaTo, Shion7 |