Next week it starts: Twelve teams from Europe, CIS and Turkey compete against each other. It’s all about a place at the Valorant Masters in Berlin. Which of them will have the chance to be the next world champion?

The EMEA Challenger Playoffs are the last test before the Masters: Berlin for the best teams from the EU region. Starting with the NaVi vs. Team Liquid match on August 12, all participants will fight for a place in one of the most important tournaments of the year. In this article you will find everything you need to know about this tournament – where to watch, how much the prize money is and what matches you can expect.

Remember when the Sentinels won the Stage 2 Masters? – Sentinels win Stage 2 Masters Reykjavik

EMEA Challenger Playoffs: Teams

Let’s start with the list of teams that qualified for the EMEA Challenger Playoffs. There will be 12 teams, which I’m sure you all know:

• Europe
• Acend
• G2 Esports
• Team Liquid
• FunPlus Phoenix
• Giants Gaming
• Guild Esports

CIS

• Natus Vincere
• forZe
• Gambit Esports

Turkey

• SuperMassive Blaze
• Oxygen Esports
• Fire Flux Esports

EMEA Challengers Playoffs: Tournament Format

The EMEA playoffs will be played in a “double elimination bracket” tournament format, meaning that even if your favorite team loses a single match, they still have a chance to win the entire tournament (although the road to get there will be much longer). The four highest seeded teams received a bye in the first round, automatically advancing them to the quarterfinals. Those teams are Acend, Gambit Esports, SuperMassive Blaze, and G2 Esports. Below you can find the entire bracket along with the tournament schedules.

EMEA Challengers Playoffs: Prize Money

The prize money for the EMEA Challengers Playoffs is €85,000. In addition to the prize money, the top 4 teams will receive spots to the Masters: Berlin, which should be worth around half a million dollars in prize money. Not to be forgotten are the VCT Circuit Points, which are crucial for the placement in each region. Although the top 4 teams will not receive VCT points, they will receive at least 175 points at the Masters: Berlin alone. The prize distribution is as follows:

• 1st place- €32,500 + place at Masters: Berlin.
• 2nd place – €15,500 + place at Masters: Berlin
• 3rd place – €10,000 + place at Masters: Berlin
• 4th place – €7,500 + place at Masters: Berlin
• 5th/6th place – €4,500 + 50 VCT points
• 7th/8th place – €2,500 + 40 VCT points
• 9th-12th place – €1,500 + 30 VCT points

EMEA Challengers Playoffs: Broadcast

The official broadcast of the tournament will take place on four different Twitch channels. Since some games will be going on at the same time, you can choose which one you want to watch. The official hosts are not yet known, but we know that they will change depending on the day of the week. Here’s where you can watch the upcoming EMEA Challengers Playoffs:

• Main Channel (Monday/Tuesday/Saturday)
• Second channel (Friday/Sunday)
• Third channel (Monday/Friday/Sunday)
• Fourth channel (Saturday)

Valorant: How to put together the optimal team

Which roles do you need to fill? How do you divide up the positions? And who is the in-game leader? We have the answers!

Many roles for five positions in the team

You can roughly divide the roles and responsibilities in a team. There is the solo defender, who can hold a point alone. The Support, who makes room with skills that need to be respected. The In-Game Lead makes the calls and works with the information of his teammates. The Entry Fragger and the Secondary are the players who go together on a point and are not afraid of enemy contact. The Sniper, who preferably holds certain angles with an Operator and can get a big advantage for the round with a First Blood, can also be beneficial to the team. Last but not least, there is the Lurker, who preferably keeps opponents busy at the other end of the map and comes from an unexpected side after enemy rotations.

The individual roles can also partially overlap or can be left out entirely or can change from round to round. An in-game leader can also be a solo defender and can also focus on minimap and communication due to defensive play. A balanced team with the assignment of such roles has the advantage that the team members know what their tasks are in the current round and can thus also build on the strengths of their agents.

The Spearhead: Entry Fragger & Secondary

The Entry Fragger is optimally the first player to make contact with the opponents around the Objective being targeted by the team. This can also be an important place on a map as a defender, e.g. to gain some control over the center in Ascent. By his push he makes room for the other mates, passes on the positions of the opponents and has the chance to get the point alone by nimble kills. The best agents for this role are Phoenix and Reyna.

As a secondary, you try to build on the moves, information and kills from the entry fragger. At a certain point, it pays to take a different position, hold different angles, or get behind enemy lines very quickly to take opponents who are rotating out of the action. Jett, Raze, Omen and Breach are particularly suitable for this role.

The Solo Defender

Since most maps have 3 main lanes, only two of them can be defended with a duo, the third “lane” then belongs to the solo defender. On Attack the role is obsolete, but an agent made for this role can here protect the team from flanks or focus on making sure the spike is well placed and defend them additionally with appropriate skills. Those who like this style of play might be satisfied with Cypher, Sage and Sova.

The Support

The main task of the support player is the optimal use of his abilities to make it easier for his own team to attack a point. This includes for example optimal placement of Smokes and the use of Flashes. As supports, many agents are suitable for this role: The solo defender agents can support well in the offense to get information or to cover some angles. Other agents are suitable as supports thanks to their sight-blocking abilities, like Brimstone and Viper, which can make it very easy to access a point. But Sova or Skye are also welcome in the role, as they can scout ahead with their Recon abilities.

The In-Game Leader

No team can function without an IGL. The game starts with the operator choice: Who plays which agent? How should the team split up on the map by default? Which agents do the opponents have? What do we have to pay attention to? How do we time the round? All this information and more have to be communicated to the team. If you want to take the role of the IGL, you should look for an agent who supports this role additionally like all agents who can get additional information by ability like Cypher, Sova and Raze.

The Sniper

Do you have an operator god in your team? Then let him take the role of the Sniper. Defensively, the Sniper can hold many angles where he can stand faster than the enemy team and get free kills especially against slow peeks. If it goes a bit offensive, he tries to move out after the spearhead, gradually covering positions where opponents can come. Good agents to support the sniper’s playstyle are for example Jett to play more offensive angles without risk or Cypher who rotates to other points after building up camera and tripwires to stay unpredictable.

The Lurker

Last but not least, there are the Lone Wolfs, who don’t like to hang out with the team, also called Lurker. This role is also useful in a team to avoid giving half the map to the opponents or to get impatient opponents when they don’t expect it because they rotate through their own spawn. Omen, Reyna and Jett are especially useful for playing off the enemy team, as their abilities make them less likely to fall victim to refrags or to escape from a bad position after a successful kill.

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