What to watch this week - VCT 2024 Masters Madrid

The VCT 2024 Masters Madrid is set to begin on March 14.

We are just days away from the start of the first VCT 2024 international LAN event with Masters Madrid on the horizon. This is the first-ever VCT Masters event to take place in Madrid, Spain and will start from March 14 to 24 with a prize pool of $250,000 as well as three VCT points to the victor. These points will go a long way for teams to qualify for VCT Champions later in the year.

The first round of Madrid Masters will take place from March 14 to 18 with an eight-team Swiss Stage format. All games during this period will be a best-of-three series with all the opening matches being the VCT League Kickoff winners going up against the runner-ups from the different regions. Only the top four teams will move on to the playoffs with the bottom four being eliminated from the tournament.

As for the playoffs, it will start from March 21 to 24 with a double-elimination bracket to look forward to. Teams that finished the Swiss Stage with a ‘2-0’ record will go up against teams with a ‘2-1’ score in the first round of matches. All games during the double-elimination bracket will be a best-of-three. However, this excludes the lower bracket final as well as the grand finals, which will be a best-of-five.

Madrid is also home to Team Heretics, who should have plenty of fans in attendance as they cheer on their squad against Sentinels, one of North America's most prolific teams right now. Karmine Corp is also known to have a fanatic group of French supporters, which should be in attendance in Spain this week to watch them play their opening series against FunPlus Phoenix.

EDward Gaming versus Paper Rex is a tale as old as time when it comes to the Asian match-up with both titans looking to start the tournament on the front foot. There's also Gen.G Esports and LOUD with the former being the VCT Pacific Kickoff champions whilst LOUD is still seen as one of the best VCT Americas teams despite not winning the most recent tournament.

Here is the schedule for the Swiss Stage matches, slated to begin later this week: