24th March 2021 – 8:47pm
The Valorant Masters 1 is over, it's time to prepare for the VCT Phase. The official website of the Valorant Champions Tour has unveiled the competition schedule and it's fair to say that the teams won't have much time to relax!
The competition will resume on 30th March with a new series of Valorant Challengers. However, this second phase will be quite different from the first. This time, there are only two Challengers tournaments, compared to three in the first phase. The best teams of these two tournaments will qualify directly for the next stage, from the first Challengers. This means that teams will have less opportunity to make up for any failure.
The biggest difference between the first and second phase is that the Masters 2 will be international. In order to define which European teams will represent the old continent, Europe will play an additional tournament: the EMEA.
This tournament will be played between the winners of the Challengers 1 and 2 of EU (Europe), CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) and TR (Turkey) servers. The top two teams in this tournament will qualify for the Valorant Masters 2. This means that at least one region will not be represented at the Masters.
The Valorant Masters 2 will be held at the end of May and will bring together the best teams from around the world in Iceland. This will be the Valorant's first ever global tournament.
The schedule of the competition is extremely busy, especially when you consider that the first phase of the VCT ends just one week before the second week begins.
| Challengers 1 – Open Qualifier | From 30th to 1st April |
| Challengers 1 – Main Event | From 6th to 9th April |
| Challengers 2 – Open Qualifier | From 10th to 12th April |
| Challengers 2 – Main Event | From 15th to 18th April |
| EMEA Challengers Playoffs | From 23rd April to 2nd May |
| Masters 2 – Main Event | From 24th to 30th May |
Open Qualifiers will not be streamed, but all other stages will be. Co-streaming is still not allowed in Europe, unlike in the United-States. The organisation of the VCT does encourage players to stream their POVs, but it's hard to see the interest for them.
The competition starts on 30th March 2020 and the Challengers will run throughout April, followed by a break until the Masters. Riot Games has probably had to accelerate the schedule so that the teams that qualify for the Masters have enough time to compete the various steps necessary for a trip to Iceland. International events are already very complicated to manage in normal times, but the pandemic certainly adds an extra burden and delay.
More details about VCT Phase 2 on the official website of the Valorant Champions Tour.
