Nerd Street Gamers and Riot Games are renewing their partnership for the 2022 VALORANT Champions Tour. Nerd Street revealed today that it will “lead operations and broadcast” for the first stage of the North American VCT for 2022, while also running all three NA Game Changers series.
The first stage of NA VCT, also known as NA VCT Challengers One, will start out with two 128-team open qualifiers that will determine who will compete in the first main event in February. Sentinels, Envy, Cloud9 Blue, and 100 Thieves have already been directly invited to compete in the main event. That main event will be a round-robin stage that concludes in a double-elimination bracket to determine who represents NA at the first international Masters event of 2022.
NSG and Riot Games partnered to host and organize the NA Challengers events throughout 2021, including NA Masters One, the Stage Two Challengers Finals, and the Stage Three Challengers Playoffs. NSG has additionally hosted a plethora of its own tier-two and tier-three events, including the NSG Summer and Winter Championships.
Last year, NSG and Riot also worked together to broadcast all three North American Game Changers series, providing a spotlight for the rapidly rising women’s VALORANT scene. Cloud9 White won all three of the NA Game Changers tournaments in 2021. NSG and Riot will work together again this year to host all three NA Game Changers series. No official start dates for these events have been given yet, however.
