Valorant’s Champions Tour 2023 kicked off with LOCK//IN São Paulo, an international event between the 30 teams that made franchising and two invited teams, it’s currently taking place in São Paulo, Brazil, and has brought quite the competition between the three major leagues. 

The event is about halfway in, and there are some pretty obvious results so far, but the 2nd half looks like it’ll bring in some quality matches. The best match from the 1st half of the bracket was NRG vs. Loud, which brought a 3-map rollercoaster of emotions, with the last map going to five rounds of overtime, but Loud took the win and qualified for playoffs. The other one to qualify was a strong DRX team, easily coasting through the bracket after winning a scary best of three against Cloud9.

For the 2nd half of the bracket, a good match that’s unfortunately early, is FNATIC vs. Sentinels, showcasing a new reworked Sentinels team and FNATIC’s old roster with the drive to prove everyone wrong, after failing to show up in the big moments in last year’s VCT. Some other teams to look out for are Team Liquid from EMEA and T1 from the Pacific as both teams have acquired elite players from roster mania back in November and are looking to prove themselves to everyone and that they deserved their spot in franchising.

My predictions for the two teams that make it out from this 2nd half are Sentinels and Team Liquid. Sentinels are an American team, but besides rooting for a home country nation, I think the squad they came up with this offseason was well thought out and executed. This team has a great in game leader, Two of the best fraggers, and a really consistent support and clutch factor within all their players. It goes the same for Team Liquid, they kept what was working from last year and then elevated it with an insanely clutch and cool-headed player, who has constantly clutched round after round in the past.

LOCK//IN São Paulo has been quite the dramatic show so far, with some favored teams collapsing against tough opponents and constant showcasing of the thinking and strategy that goes behind playing Valorant. It’ll surely keep this up as it picks back up this weekend, with hopefully even more competitiveness and shock.