Valorant Champions Tour Iceland Expectations

The Valorant Champions Tour Iceland is about to conclude with 7 teams qualified as of May 4th, 2021. The competition is shaping up to be really tight as the first international tournament starts filling up with the biggest names in the Valorant esports community. With this being the first international tournament for Valorant as an esports, let’s take a look at some of the expectations that the fans have for the teams, company, and the tournament itself going into Iceland.

Valorant Champions Tour Iceland

The Valorant Champions Tour Iceland tournament will be held at Reykjavík, Iceland by the end of May which should be around the scheduled conclusion of League of Legends’ Mid-Season Invitationals. This will consist of representatives from all over the world with a completely different invitational system than League of Legends, although you’ll be seeing all the same countries competing for the first-ever Championship trophy to prove which region houses the best team in the world.

Riot Games has announced that the Valorant Champions tournament is the highest-tier tournament in the game. The status of the regions isn’t as established compared to League of Legends but it seems the two biggest contenders in the tournament are North America and EMEA (EU, TR, and CIS). As the tournament draws close, fans want to know what their expectations should be going into the tournament. Let’s discover everything there is to know about the Valorant Champions Tour Iceland cup.

The Best Teams Heading Into The Tournament

The west has always ruled the FPS esports scene since the world can remember and it seems that expectation will continue with Valorant. The North American and Europe, Middle East, and African representatives are the favorites to win the entire tournament. With the very disappointing knockout of Vision Strikers in the Korean scene, a lot of hype surrounding a Korean challenger going into the Valorant Champions Tour Iceland tournament died out even though Nuturn was the team that beat them.

Despite Valorant Champions Tour Iceland being the first international tournament for the game, a lot of representatives are going in as veteran contenders because of their history in other FPS esports such as CS:GO, Overwatch, and other games. The top 3 contenders in the Valorant Champions tournament are unexpected but let’s discuss how these teams came to earn their rightful place as the biggest competitors in the tournament.

1. Sentinels

Sentinels is NA’s 1st seed coming into the tournament and are the biggest favorite to take home the trophy. Despite one of their star players – Sinatraa – being suspended, they unintentionally created a superteam after taking in ex-Cloud9 player, TenZ into the main roster. Sentinels were seemingly unstoppable even with Sinatraa but now that TenZ has entered the fray, the team just looks like nothing could topple them down from the level of play that they are showcasing to the world.

• Team Leader: ShahZaM
• Star Player: TenZ
• Region: North America

Sentinels are the best bet in the tournament and no one can deny that they’ll most likely dominate half the tournament. The team is filled with individual star prowess and a coordinated strategy that is unique to their roster. Even though Tenz is widely considered to be the star of Sentinels, people should also watch out for both SicK and Dapr, who both largely contribute to the success of the team.

2. Team Liquid

Team Liquid are EMEA’s 1st seed coming into VCT Iceland and are one of the more successful orgs in Europe. The team centers around ScreaM, who is one of the most decorated players in CS:GO, winning several A-Tier and S-Tier tournaments before transitioning to Valorant. ScreaM is known for having a very high headshot ration, which will be the biggest factor in Team Liquids games against the powerhouse known as Sentinels.

• Team Leader: N/A
• Star Player: ScreaM
• Region: Europe

Aside from Jamppi, Team Liquid has retained almost all of its original members and have found success after playing together for some time. It was only after they replaced their IGL – ec1s – with Jamppi did the team find a playstyle that suited them. Both ScreaM and Kryptix ranked in the Top 3 best KDAs in the VCT 2021: Finals. The team will have to show an incredible level of coordination and individual skills to defeat Sentinels.

What happened to Vision Strikers?

The only team outside the west to be in the discussion of which teams would most likely have a chance at taking home the Valorant Champions Tour Iceland trophy was the Korean Team, Vision Strikers. This team had an impressive record of 102 wins and 0 losses throught June 2020 to April 2021. Every team in the west talked about wanting to compete against the Korean powerhouse and see for themselves if they had what it takes to make this team bleed.

Unfortunately, Vision Strikers began to fall, beginning in April 15th after losing to F4Q – a team of streamers. They would take 4 more losses throughout April and finally lose out on the most important tournament of this season – the VCT Qualifiers in Korea to Nuturn after losing 0:2. People like to blame the fact that the Korean Shotgun meta or the fact that the rest of the region has finally adapted to the ever changing environment after introducing new Agents and Maps.

Expecting the Unexpected

Even though the major Western teams have the upper-hand in terms of tournament experience, fans shouldn’t expect that the minor regions such as Brazil, LATAM, and Korea won’t be decent challengers for the trophy. Each of the regions have different playstyles which can be attributed to the culture of gaming in the regions but you might be surprised at how much this can affect the way these players will play the game in a way that overcomes even the biggest hurdles.