We're just few days from Masters Reykjavik, VALORANT's first international LAN tournament, after two months of regional Challenger’s tournaments where more than 2000 teams from seven different regions participated, but only ten have made it to Iceland. This article contains details about the format, schedule, participating teams of the Masters Reykjavik.

Participating Teams:

As mentioned earlier, a total of 10 teams qualified from regions with 2 teams from NA, EMEA, and BR while one each from KR, JP, LATAM and SEA. Here are the names of teams that managed to secure a spot at the Masters: NA: Sentinels, Version1 EMEA: Fnatic, Team Liquid BR: Team Vikings, Shark Esports KR: NUTURN Gaming JP: Crazy Raccoon LATAM: KRÜ Esports SEA: X10 Esports

Format:

The tournament in Iceland will be a double-elimination format, with all teams starting in the upper bracket. Since there are ten mismatched teams, four teams will have to play an extra match. The top two teams from North America and Europe, the regions with the most players, received a spot in the second round. As for the remaining teams, the order in which the teams and regions were chosen was randomized. Similar to preceding tournaments, all matches in the Masters will be best of three, with a best of five grand final.

Matchups:

Version1 will face Japan's Crazy Raccoons on one side of the upper bracket, while Fnatic will face LATAM challengers KRÜ Esports on the other. Sentinels will play the winner of the first match, and Team Liquid will play the winner of the second match. The losers will be relegated to the lower bracket's first round. In the upper bracket's second round, Team Vikings will face SEA challengers X10 Esports, while Sharks Esports will face Korea leaders NUTURN Gaming. The losers of those matches will drop to the lower bracket yet again. The winner of the Vikings vs X10 matchup will face the winner of the Sentinels round two matchup, while the winner of the Sharks vs NUTURN matchup will face the winner of Team Liquid's round two matchup. Consequently, the losers of those two matches will be positioned in the lower bracket's second round. The winners of the upper bracket's third round will progress to the final, while the losers will be relegated to the lower bracket's third round. The loser of the upper bracket final will be seeded into the lower bracket's fourth round, while the winner will be seeded into grand finals. Finally, the winner of lower bracket’s fourth round will move onto the grand finals. The bracket above is a more simplified version of the matchups that will take place in the Masters Reykjavik.

Venue, Schedule and Prize Pool:

Masters Reykjavik will take place over the course of seven days in a COVID-19 secure bubble in Iceland. The first five days will have three matches per day, with just three matches scattered over the last two days including the Grand Final, which will be held on Sunday, May 30^th. Monday, May 24:   Upper Bracket Round 1 and 2 Tuesday, May 25:  Upper Bracket Round 2 Wednesday, May 26:  Lower Bracket Round 1 and Upper Bracket Round 3 Thursday, May 27:  Upper Bracket Round 3 and Lower Bracket Round 3 Friday, May 28:  Lower Bracket Round 3 and Upper Bracket Final Saturday, May 29:  Lower Bracket Round 4 and Lower Bracket Final Sunday, May 30:  Grand Finals The $600,000 prize pool, which is larger than all of the December First Strike tournaments, for Masters will be split among the ten players, with first place taking $200,000 for themselves.

Agent Meta:

Jett and Sova are expected to be the top two agents chosen throughout the Masters. With the exception of Sova on Split, they're the go-to foundations for any team's composition on any map. Viper and Sage rates are expected to rise further, as both agents are considered important for defense and post-plant situations on the attacking side. Moreover, teams like Liquid and Crazy Raccoon will likely begin to realize Omen's usefulness value is minimal as opposed to Astra causing her pick rates to increase in comparison to Omen.

Last Words….

Teams that compete in the three Masters events will earn points toward qualifying to the world championship event, Champions. Additionally, the team that wins the final Masters event will qualify directly for Champions regardless of their points total. After that final Masters event, four Last Chance Qualifiers will produce the final four teams for Champions. All eyes are on the competition in Reykjavik, now just 4 days away! Kindly support us by following Esports Heaven on Twitter and keep tabs on our website for more interesting content. If you enjoyed this piece, follow the author for more Valorant content at @AashirAhmed155.