VCT Last Chance Qualifiers schedule and predictions

VALORANT Champions Tour 2022 is nearing the end of its 2022 season and the upcoming series of regional Last Chance Qualifiers will be the final opportunity for teams to secure a spot in this year’s season-concluding VALORANT Champions event. 

A total of five Last Chance Qualifiers are planned for APAC, South America, North America, EMEA and East Asia. Each event will feature eight teams, except for the Asia-Pacific tournament, which will see ten squads face off to fight for the slot in the final and biggest VCT tournament of the year. Overall 42 squads across all five regions will compete during LCQ and needless to say that the stakes are extremely high.

The first VCT Last Chance Qualifier will run in APAC between August 1-7. The North American competition will be held from August 4-14, while the EMEA qualifier will take place from August 7-14. East Asian and South American competitions will start on August 8 and 6, respectively, and both end on August 14. 

As for the distribution of slots, all regions except South America will crown one winner that qualifies for the Champions, while SA will have two squads qualify. 

Teams to follow during LCQ 

North America

Unsurprisingly, the competition seems to be rough and full of surprises. The North American event will feature The Guard, who qualified for previous VCT Stage 1 Masters in Reykjavík, but failed to qualify for Stage 2 Masters in Copenhagen. Now, the LCQ will show whether they returned to their previous competitive form. Moreover, it will be undoubtedly interesting to follow FaZe Clan, who finished in third place during Stage 2 Challengers. Other strong competitors are Sentinels, who recently signed popular Twitch streamer Michael “shroud” Grzesiek, 100Thieves and Cloud9. 

EMEA

EMEA LCQ will feature team Acend — the winners of Champions 2021 — who recently changed the roster a bit by benching Aleksander “zeek” Zygmunt. However, the organization hasn’t yet revealed who will be playing at the event instead. 

Other popular European squads are M3 Champions, consisting of the former Gambit Esports roster, as well as G2 Esports and Team Liquid. The region seems to be one of the most spectacular competitions across all qualifiers as it will include some of the top VALORANT teams.

South America, East Asia and APAC

In South American LCQ, all eyes will be on KRÜ and Ninjas in Pyjamas, who both successfully qualified for Stage 1 Masters and will likely show great performances again. Meanwhile, East Asia will unite teams from China, Korea and Japan to compete in LCQ for the first time in VALORANT history, which makes this qualifier quite unpredictable. APAC will feature only one team with some experience in international tournaments — Team Secret. 

VALORANT Champions 2022

VALORANT Champions 2022 is scheduled for September 2-18 and will be held as an offline global event in Istanbul, Turkey, featuring this season’s top 16 squads. Here are the teams that have already secured a spot at the event through Circuit Standings: 

• North America: OpTic Gaming, XSET
• EMEA: FunPlus Phoenix, Fnatic
• Brazil: LOUD
• Latin America: Leviatán
• Korea: DRX
• Japan: Zeta Division 
• APAC: Paper Rex, XERXIA

Header credit: Riot Games