Valorant Champions 2026 has reached its Playoffs stage after a dominant showing by two of Valorant’s four regions.
The Americas and Pacific regions will field four and three teams, respectively, in the Shanghai Playoffs, with Team Vitality taking up the last spot for EMEA.
Valorant Champions 2026 Playoff Bracket
The Valorant Champions 2026 Playoffs Bracket is:
- NRG vs T1
- Paper Rex vs LOUD
- 100 Thieves vs G2
- Vitality vs Nongshim RedForce
The playoffs are double-elimination, so don’t worry if your team doesn’t progress in the first round of playoffs. Ultimately, one team from the upper bracket and one team from the lower bracket will make the Grand Finals.
The Lower Bracket Final and Grand Final will be Best of 5 contests; every other match will be Best of 3.
VCT China and EMEA suffer disappointing Group Stage
The hometown fans in China will definitely be the most miserable after a horrific showing in Shanghai that saw the VCT China teams go 0-8 in series and 2-16 in maps, with every VCT China team finishing joint-last.
The Americas region will clearly be the happiest going into the Playoffs, with all four teams making the playoffs of the event, constituting half of the field.
Valorant Champions 2025 winners NRG and VCT Americas Stage 2 winners 100T rode high in winning their groups, whereas LOUD and G2 took losses to Vitality and Paper Rex, but made it through regardless.
The region does somewhat suffer from its own success, with the draw pairing 100T and G2 in the upper quarters, but that’s overall a good problem to have.
As for Pacific, their only blemish is the elimination of Global Esports, who lost the opening contest to Vitality before falling to LOUD in the elimination/promotion match.
Only Paper Rex won their group for the Pacific region, proving their prowess at the biggest events in Valorant, but Nongshim recovered well from their opening loss to NRG to defeat XLG and Karmine Corp and make the playoffs, with T1 surprising many by fighting past JDG and FUT to qualify for the playoffs.
That means only the Group B winners, Team Vitality, have made Valorant Champions Shanghai Playoffs for the EMEA region. The roster showed its superteam credentials in victories over Global Esports and LOUD, but were let down by their EMEA colleagues.
Karmine Corp, FUT, and Team Liquid managed their only wins of the competition against VCT China opposition, with the EMEA region generally looking simplistic and disjointed in its approach.
There will be a lot to reflect on when the EMEA teams return to Berlin for the new era of Valorant, most of all the instability of EMEA rosters, as the region once again suffered from a lack of international prowess outside of Vitality veterans Nikita ‘Derke’ Sirmitev and Timofey ‘Chronicle’ Khromov.
Who do you think will win Valorant Champions 2026? Let us know your thoughts on the Insider Gaming Discord server.
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Darragh is an Esports Journalist for Insider Gaming specialising in Counter-Strike. He loves to explore how esports teams work, or why they very often do not.
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