Valorant has taken off, millions are playing around the globe, and with its full release – even more so. A game like Valorant with its roots deeply ingested in CSGO, it’s inclusion as an esports was inevitable. So, in collaboration with game developer Riot Games, Twitch crowned the first world champions of Valorant. The community witnessed more than 300 players fighting this weekend in respective regions for a prize pool of $200,000 and to become the first Valorant Twitch Rivals victors. Tournaments took place from Asia to Latin America. The flagship event launched on June 6th, when North America took the floor. In the NA region, complete teams were signed to esports organizations joining the Valorant competitive scene, setting the stage for a tournament that might be a peek into the potential of Global Valorant esports. For those unaware, the Twitch Rivals format is that the name of the team is based on its captain's name. Each captain names four players, and that's the team.  

Winners:

The victors of the 3rd tournament were the following:

• Europe #1: Team Mixwell
• Europe #2: Team Duno
• North America: Team Brax
• LATAM #1: Team blue_mx
• LATAM #2: Team frankkaster
• Korea: Team juankorea
• Japan: BAKEMON
• Brazil: Team pannshi

Prize Pool:

The total prize pool for this tournament was $200,000 distributed across 6 different regions. The breakdown was as follows: The NA tournaments share $42,000 from the total $200,000. Other tournaments featured two 16-team European sections, each with a $49,000 prize pool, going through Sunday, and groups for Japan (four teams, $10,000, Sunday); Korea (four teams, $10,000, Saturday); Latin America No. 1 (four teams, $10,000, Saturday); and Latin America No. 2 (four teams, $10,000, Sunday); Brazil (eight teams, $20,000, Saturday and Sunday).  

Europe:

Both the European events consisted of teams split into 4 teams for round-robin play on Friday, each of which consisted of a single map.  Two reigning teams in each group won a single-elimination playoff spot. The quarter-finals consisted of single-map matches, whereas the semi-finals and the finals were best-of-three. Without further ado, let’s dive into the specific of what went down in the European tournaments. There were two tournaments so this section will be categorized corroborating each tournament held.

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Related: Reyna: One Week Later Post Release

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EU #1:

Here are the main statistics to keep in mind: These were the only teams to get a share out of the $49,000.  

Team	W/L	Earnings
Team Mixwell	6-0	$12,250
Team ONSCREEN	5-1	$7,250
Team bonkar	4-1	$4,750
Team Lutti	3-2	$4,250

Team Mixwell completely outplayed the bracket, winning all of their games, acing their way through playoffs. It is no surprise that the triumphant squad was made up of professionals from the EU Counter-Strike scene who transitioned into Valorant. Other teams including Team ONSCREEN (Group A), Team Mickalow (Group B), and Team Bonkar (Group D) also finished 3-0 in the quarter-finals; however, they failed to maintain this consistency unlike Mixwell and thus fell short of the title.  

EU #2

In the 2^nd half of the European competition, the scenario was similar. Team Duno finished first without being defeated. This part of the European region consisted of countries like Russia, Ukraine, etc where CSGO had amassed a ton of fame, and people being aware of its playstyle didn’t feel like a stranger while trying out Valorant. Here’s how it went down:  

Team	W/L	Earnings
Team Duno	6-0	$12,250
Team wtcN	5-1	$7,250
Team Izak	3-2	$4,750
Team gdolphnn	3-2	$4,250

The WtcN team progressed to meet Team Duno. Team Duno split 13-12 decisions on Haven and Bind before they scored a 13-7 victory on Haven.  

North American:

T1’s newly signed star-studded line-up brought home the trophy and this came as no surprise – given they were favorites. However, the tournament wasn’t one-sided and featured nail-biting matches which left the audience at the edge of their seats. T1 stomped on the way to the No. 1 position in the group stage without breaking a sweat.  

On Sunday's championship, things got a little more difficult for T1. Although Team sh0ts were dispatched in a fairly straightforward fashion, their finals were against Team Myth. When the series was at its tipping point, Keven "AZK" took over Larivière. His Breach action on the final map represented his peak point, flipping a one-on-two leading T1 to the championship.  

Team	W/L	Earnings
Team Brax	5-0	$10,250
Team Myth	4-1	$7,250
Team sh0ts	3-1	$4,750
Team Mendo	3-1	$4,750

For the time being, T1 will celebrate their first success as a starting five with the latest inclusion of former Counter-Strike World Champion Tyler "Skadoodle" Latham. And this victory will be first among the many, given that their roster was specially designed to compete on the World Stage.  

Meta:

The buffs to certain agents heading into the launch and the addition of Reyna along with the introduction of Ascent shook the meta, with only Sage still standing as a required pick. Teams like T1 dropped Brimstone at times to pick up Omen capitalizing on his ability to provide a viable distraction. The introduction of Reyna to the meta was an intriguing one too. While in terms of pick rate she came in third behind Brimstone and Sage, all duelists achieved success during the event.  

There was one concern, though. In the NA region, Viper was not picked once, not even the lesser-ranked teams who skipped Sage wanted to pick up Viper. If teams that don't play Sage don't want to opt Viper, it might represent a problem. Although it seems as if she's going to get some buffs in the upcoming patch, it might take more than a few tweaks to make her a prominent competitive agent. On the European side, every pick was seen at least five times. Some had map-specific uses, but quite a few are in there because a certain player was one of the only players to use that agent, and they will play that agent on almost every map -- hence accounting for those agents being picked repeatedly. In a nutshell, Sage proved to be the highly opted Agent, as she was picked in 40 out of 42 matches on the EU side, and bore the highest pick rate in the NA region as well.  

Key Takeaway:

When the games were close and things between the top players were getting heated, people were tuning in. During the tournament, streamers peaked at over 35,000 viewers while playing alongside the core of the French-Canadian Gen. G. Like previous Valorant finals, the finals between T1 and TSM were thrilling and had a ton of convincing plays which amassed a huge collective audience on live-streaming platforms.   The esports-potential of a game is largely determined by its audience since broadcasting it accounts for nearly half the revenue generated from the event. And a larger audience also attracts sponsors, making it a win-win situation. Moral of the story? We're off to a strong start.

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