The first two VALORANT squads for Masters Tokyo have been officially confirmed via the top two teams from the FGC VALORANT Invitational 2023 from China.
The champions of the first act, Attacking Soul Esports, will join fellow grand finalist EDward Gaming in Tokyo, Riot Games announced today. Both teams went 5-0 in the group stage, and both started in the upper bracket of playoffs. Attacking Soul ended up falling down to the lower bracket but won three straight to reach the grand finals versus EDG. After falling behind 2-1 in the series, they won back-to-back on Icebox and Ascent to claim the trophy.
Attacking Soul will attend its first international VALORANT event after bolstering its roster with former EDG player Qu “Life” Donghao this past November. EDG will attend their third straight international VALORANT event after qualifying for Champions 2022 via the East Asia Last Chance Qualifier, then receiving an invite to VCT LOCK//IN.
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China as a competitive region is still looking to get some wind behind its sails when it comes to international competition in VALORANT. China has only competed at the two previously mentioned events and went 0-2 in matches at both events, with EDG themselves accounting for three of those four losses (the fourth being FPX at VCT LOCK//IN). Both FPX and EDG took a map off Karmine Corp and 100T respectively at VCT LOCK//IN.
VALORANT as a game was only finally approved by the Chinese government this past December; the game has still, to our knowledge, not been officially released but is playable.
Masters Tokyo is set to kick off on June 11. The format and other qualified teams are yet to be determined.
Published: Apr 26, 2023 03:05 pm