The Guard, OpTic, Cloud9, and XSET will receive direct invites to 2022 NA VCT Stage 2 Challengers main event

The top-four teams from the North American 2022 VALORANT Champions Tour: Stage One Challengers main event will receive direct invites to the Stage Two Challengers main event. The Guard, OpTic, Cloud9, and XSET will bypass both open qualifiers and advance straight to the group stage set for May.

This follows a similar format used during Stage One, in which the top-four NA teams from the 2021 VCT season were invited to the main event. That group consisted of Sentinels, C9, OpTic (while they were known as Envy), and 100 Thieves. But both Sentinels and 100T failed to finish top four in Stage One this year and now will to re-qualify through open qualifiers.

So far, there’s no indication that the non-top four teams that participated in the Stage One main event will receive a bye in the open qualifiers or any other advantage other than an assumed high seed. Each of the open qualifier brackets will be single-elimination until the round-of-32 before transitioning into double-elimination. There will be no upper or lower bracket finals. The top four from each open qualifier will advance directly into the main stage along with the four directly qualified teams.

The Guard, who ended up winning the first North American stage, were one of several teams that qualified for the main event via the open qualifiers, as did XSET. The Guard and OpTic are both representing North America at VCT Masters Reykjavík.

The first open qualifier is set to take place from April 28 to May 1, with the second scheduled for May 5 to 8. Signups for both are now open.