VCT Champions 2023 was arguably its best to date from Riot Games.
Evil Geniuses have been crowned the new world champions of the VCT after the boys in blue hoisted the VCT Champions 2023 trophy in front of a rambunctious home crowd at the KIA Forum in Los Angeles, Califonia. But aside from EG being the best team in the world right now, VCT Champions 2023 also played host to many other interesting subplots that took place over the better part of August.
This included special guest appearances from one of the biggest tech investors of the last few years as well as one of Hollywood's biggest actors/director. However, there was more to VCT Champions 2023 than just a few fresh and familiar faces; the devs behind VALORANT also introduced a brand new map that will be included with Episode 7 Act 2, which is expected to drop in a few days.
Big but not quite there yet
According to Esports Charts, the grand finals between Evil Geniuses and Paper Rex brought in a peak viewership of 1.29 million. Meanwhile, its average viewership sat at almost half a million with 491,683. However, it still doesn't trump last season's grand finals between OpTic Gaming and LOUD, which had a peak viewership of a little over 1.5 million while also garnering more than half a million average viewers.
And given how this year's VCT Champions featured a much larger prize pool than the first two combined, many would've expected much higher numbers in terms of viewership. This could be down to several factors, one of which is that last year's grand finalists featured a North and South American squad that had an intense rivalry throughout the entire 2022 season.
In comparison to its main competitor's biggest tournament this year, the Blast.tv Paris Major 2023, featured similar numbers to VCT Champions 2023 with a little over 1.5 million in peak viewership alongside an average of over 500,000.
Close but no cigar for Fnatic
There were plenty of favourites at VCT Champions 2023 but none more so than Fnatic. Having spectacularly won LOCK//IN and Masters Tokyo, Fnatic was easily touted as the first team to lift all three major VCT titles in one season. And with only a single loss to their name the entire season against Team Liquid during the VCT EMEA League grand finals, it didn't look like they were going to drop another game for the rest of the year.
However, along came LOUD who handed Fnatic only their second loss of the season in the upper bracket quarterfinals of VCT Champions. While they had to slog through a lower bracket run that included sending home FUT Esports and DRX, many still predicted that Fnatic could still make it to the grand finals. Unfortunately, LOUD had other plans as they met once again, this time in the lower bracket semifinals.
And once more, LOUD spectacularly defeated Fnatic to finally get its revenge after the reverse sweep at LOCK//IN. While a fourth-place finish at VCT Champions is still an acceptable accomplishment, it was also Fnatic's first-ever finish outside of the top three this season, having made three grand finals appearances this season and won two in the process.
The title stays in North America
As LOUD were last year's winners, Evil Geniuses' win last week has ensured that the trophy stays in North America for at least one more season. However, this is a particularly big win for the United States as it has been quite some time since an NA-based organisation has won a major title. The last team to win a major VCT title was Sentinels during the Stage 2 Masters in Reykjavík back in 2021.
And in the context of Riot's esports titles as a whole, it's only EG and Sentinels who have been successful in VALORANT. In its other title like League of Legends, no NA-based organisation or the LCS for that matter, have ever won a major trophy like Worlds or MSI. While it does make for some grim reading, NA fans can rejoice to know that EG is the best team in the world right now.
EG will now have to prove it all once more when the next season rolls around in a few months, starting with Masters Madrid being the first international LAN, expected to take place around March 2024.
Jinggg's last dance with Paper Rex
Every major tournament will always have a fan favourite, especially one with a captivating story that tugs at your heartstrings and plays on your emotions. A story of humility, friendship, and family are feel-good factors that play an important role in how a team is portrayed. And no other team managed to capture that perfectly other than Paper Rex.
A team that conformed to no specific playstyle other than their own, PRX came into the tournament as an outside favourite to lift the title, given how they dominated the VCT Pacific League despite a rough start to the season. And at the beginning of VCT Champions, it was quickly made known to the public that it would be JingYing "Jinggg" Lim's last run with the team as he was due to serve in his country's mandatory national service.
Being one of the more underrated duelists in the VCT, many within the community were disheartened to hear that he would be leaving the scene and hoped that PRX would be able to have the perfect send-off for him. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case as even though PRX came within touching distance, they once again found themselves at the hands of a 3-1 grand finals defeat.
VALORANT is going Hollywood
Ever since its release back in mid-2020, VALORANT has steadily become one of the most popular first-person tactical shooters out there. And with Riot constantly pushing the boundaries when it comes to its titles, one can only expect VALORANT to go up from here. Of course, it also helps when big-name figures drop by the KIA Forum to check out the VCT Champions grand finals.
It was all the buzz over the weekend when the likes of Ben Affleck made a surprise appearance as well as Elon Musk. While the former took the time to give interviews where he spoke of being a KAY/O main as well as Jett's nerf, the latter mostly received negative feedback when displayed on the live stream in the arena due to his purchase over Twitter and its eventual rebranding to X.
And just when you thought VALORANT couldn't go anymore Hollywood, a new map was also released with the backdrop being Los Angeles, California. Sunset is the latest map to come out from Riot and one of the more noticeable features of it is the recreation of the iconic LA sunset lighting. It can't get any more Hollywood than that.
