Cover-Credits:
Riot Games has been actively trying to build the Valorant community in China. It released the game's second Chinese agent, Iso, also recently.
Around July 2023, Riot Games started planning the competitive Valorant circuit for 2024 and Shanghai was announced as the location for its second international tournament to take place next year: Valorant Champions Tour (VCT) 2024 Masters Shanghai.
Following this, Riot Games also revealed that China would get its own separate VCT league. Ever since, anticipation has been on an all-time high in the community about the teams that would get the coveted partner slots in the league.
On 11th December, Riot Games revealed all ten partnered teams in the Chinese league (VCT China 2024).
VCT China 2024: Partnered Teams
In 2022, Riot Games began a robust selection process to choose the partners for each league: Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA), Pacific, and North America (NA).
Riot Games stated that the selection process for the VCT 2023 season was incredibly competitive and that it spanned months altogether. It included a written application, in-depth interviews, and financial reviews. The company also made it clear that it was looking for partners who shared similar visions and that past competitive performance was not a key consideration.
Now, the fourth league has been added to the esports leg in the form of China.
The partnered teams will essentially kick off their Valorant Champions Tour (VCT) China campaign in February 2024 with the VCT 2024: China Kick-Off tournament.
The top two teams from the tournament will qualify for the VCT Madrid Masters which is scheduled to take place in March 2024. It is also the first international event of the year.
In VCT China 2024, there will be eleven teams in total. Apart from the usual ten partnered teams, the other team will qualify for this main league via the Valorant China Ascension 2023 event. This Tier-2 event kicks off on 23rd December.
The 10 VCT China 2024 partnered teams that are competing in 2024 include:
Nova Esports
JD Gaming
Trace Esports
Wolves Esports
FunPlus Phoenix
All Gamers
BilBili Gaming
EDward Gaming
Titan Esports Club
TYLOO
EDward Gaming (EDG) has been a stellar team and has been shining in international events like Valorant Champions Tour (VCT) 2023 Masters Tokyo. Notably, EDG was the first Valorant team from China to ever qualify for an international Valorant tournament in 2022 when it participated in Valorant Champions 2022.
It will be interesting to see how the league performs in the coming year and China as a region is able to dominate the other three leagues!
