The Valorant Champions Tour 2022 continues in various parts of the world. For the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region,the 12 teams to compete in the main event of Stage 1 Challengers are almost determined. Four teams have been invited to the main event, and eight other teamswill qualify for the EMEA qualifiers in January through the open and closed qualifiers phase. The main event will consist of a playoff stage, which will take place from February 11 to March 27, following the group game. Below is a preview of each of the teams competing in the EMEA Stage 1 Challengers main event.
Your #VALORANTChallengers EMEA Stage 1 groups! pic.twitter.com/HYj1zxdP7K
— VALORANT Champions Tour EMEA (@valesports_emea) January 23, 2022
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► VCT EMEA 2022 Program and Format
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The VCT EMEA Challengers Stage 1 main event will begin on February 11, 2022.
Acend (Invited Team)
The Valorant world champions are, of course, one of the four invitees to the EMEA Challengers 1 main event. Unsurprisingly, they haven't made any changes to the roster after winning Champions a little over a month ago. Four of the five members of the team have been in the organization since March 2021, and Aleksander "zeek" Zygmunt joined in June last year. Star duelist and Turkey representative Mehmet Yağız "cNed" İpek will fight for the championship again this year with the same team.
Gambit Esports (Invited Team)
Gambit Esports will maintain the same five-man roster for the 2022 VCT season. Four of the five members of the team have been together since September 2020, and IGL Igor "Redgar" Vlasov joined the team in January 2021.
Team Liquid (Invited Team)
Team Liquid had a 13-game winning streak and looked absolutely undefeated before losing to Acend in the Champions semi-finals. It is an undeniable fact that star duelist Adil “ScreaM” Benrlitom and his brother Nabil "Nivera" Benrlitom carried the team throughout their streak.
Fnatic (Invited Team)
Of the four invited teams, only Fnatic made roster changes. Domagoj "Doma" Fancev was deactivated last month and TENSTAR has been added to the roster. According to a statement posted on Fnatic's website, " This is the first of several changes we're making to build a roster that will achieve as much success as possible next season." No other changes have been made so far, and the team has yet to announce a new member to the roster.
Guild Esports
Qualified for Europe's first closed qualifier.
Guild Esports performed almost flawlessly in the EMEA open and closed qualifiers. They qualified for the EMEA Tier 1 Challengers main event with nine consecutive wins . Not only did they finish ninth in the VCT EMEA circuit points standings last year , they were also one win away from qualifying for Champions . They have since stepped away from their all-Swedish roster and added three new players: Jose Luis "koldamenta" Aranguren Herrero, Russel "Russ" Mendes and Nikita "trexx" Cherednichenko. Koldamenta, their most important contribution in the off-season.
BIG
Qualified for Europe's first closed qualifier
The German BIG team lost just one game on their way to becoming the second team to come out of the closed qualifiers. They have not made any moves on the roster this season. BIG's last appearance in a high-level VCT competition was to take part in Stage 3, Challengers 2 closed qualifiers. They didn't get a halfway point to qualify for any of the Masters tournaments or Champions games last year, so it's by far the organization's biggest achievement that they are now among the top 12 teams in EMEA for Challengers 1.
SuperMassive Blaze
Qualified to participate in Turkey's first closed qualifier
SuperMassive Blaze had no difficulty in being the first closed qualifier team from Turkey. During the open and closed knockout stages, they did not lose any matches, except for two maps. Last year, SuperMassive Blaze, one of the best teams in Turkey, qualified to compete in Masters: Berlin. They overhauled their roster after being eliminated from the EMEA Last Chance Qualifiers in October. Since then, Caner "CyderX" Demir, Göktuğ "XiSTOU" Canciger and Burak "glovee" Yıldırım have been added to the roster. The most important move, IGL Melih "pAura" Karaduran has been replaced with the new IGL CyderX.
FunPlus Phoenix
Qualified for the first closed qualifier of the CIS
FunPlus was one of the most disappointing European teams last year. Despite high expectations and good results at the start of the year, the team got worse as the year went on and they eventually competed in the EMEA Final Chance Qualifiers. The team made two moves in the off-season, adding Dmitry "SUYGETSU" Ilyushin and Ardis "ardiis" Svarenieks. Perhaps more importantly, the team switched regions from Europe to the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) of Russia. Although the team is still part of the EMEA region, being in the CIS region will give them a chance to reach higher levels of competition in the region and qualify for Masters and Champions.
G2 Esports
Qualified for Europe's second closed qualifier
For a team that finished in the top four at the Masters: Berlin last year and looked like one of the best teams in the world, they barely made it to EMEA's Challengers 1 main event . After numerous roster changes, they were quickly eliminated during the first closed qualifier and then had to fight in the open group for the second closed qualifier. Their star IGL Oscar "mixwell" Cañellas Colocho is currently in reserve and they have recently brought back young duelist Wassim "keloqz" Cista to the roster. The current version of the roster also includes newcomers Aaro "hoody" Peltokangas and Johan "Meddo" Renbjörk Lundborg, who both joined in December.
BBL Esports
BBL Esports was the winner of VCT 2022 Türkiye Stage 1 2 Closed Qualifiers. Defeating their opponent Futbolist 3-1, the team will take part in EMEA Challengers 1st Stage Group B.
Match results;
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