Meet the teams from North America – VALORANT Champions 2022

With just days to go until VALORANT Champions 2022 kicks off, the excitement is at its peak. The 16 qualifying teams from different regions will try to lift the trophy in the most prestigious tournament of the season. Just like last year, North America will send 3 representatives to the year-end event. OpTic Gaming, XSET and 100 Thieves will try to take home the championship.

We already covered individual teams like EDward Gaming, making a bid for int’l glory, but now its time to look at the real top dogs.

OpTic Gaming

The winner of the first global tournament of the 2022 season is coming to VALORANT Champions 2022 to hopefully bring another trophy home. OpTic Gaming’s roster is now among the favorites of every organization they participate in, thanks to the successes they have achieved in the tournaments they have competed in. While achieving success after success sounds good, there are also some problems caused by this.

OpTic started the season by finishing second in VCT 2022 North America Stage 1 behind The Guard. This second place forced them to start Masters Reykjavík in the group stage, but they managed to turn this disadvantage in their favor. The team got used to the stage and the LAN setup after the matches they played and defeated LOUD in the final to claim their first title of the season. By Stage 2, they finished second again, behind XSET in their region. However, this time they had to settle for third place at Masters Copenhagen, losing to FPX.

They are be default considered one of the top three favorites at this event, but OpTic is studied at length by all other teams, and there is only so far one can take inventiveness with this game.

XSET

XSET will take part in the VALORANT Champions tournament for the first time after a long run of good performances on the North American scene. For the organization’s first global appearance on the VALORANT stage, there is no need to go back too far. After their championship at VCT 2022 North America Stage 2, they participated in Masters Copenhagen as the region’s first seed. However, they suffered the same fate as The Guard and went home without a win in the tournament.

Getting used to offline tournaments is a challenge for players to overcome in a short period of time, and XSET failed to do so in their first tournament. With the experience gained, it is much more likely that we will see real performances from XSET players at VALORANT Champions 2022.

100 Thieves

100 Thieves’ VCT journey hasn’t been going their way for two seasons now. The organization that managed to participate in only one global tournament last season, will be in front of an international audience for the first time this year at VALORANT Champions 2022. In order to achieve this success, they have made very important changes.

After a disappointing performance at VCT 2022 North America Stage 1, 100 Thieves decided to rebuild. After parting ways with the entire former coaching staff, the organization brought in ddk, sgares and Mikes. These changes were followed by player transfers. First, Ethan, Hiko and jcStani parted ways; then, Derrek, steller and Will joined the roster.

The changes paid off with the start of Stage 2. Despite a short preparation period, the team made it to the Stage 2 playoffs and managed to qualify for the Last Chance Qualifier with the points they collected.
100T stepped up their performance and beat The Guard 3-0 in the LCQ Final to secure a ticket to Champions 2022.

If we had to make a selection of three teams to represent NA at Champs, these would be the teams we want to see. Granted, Sentinels would be a fandom favorite, but in terms of raw firepower NA is sending their best teams in this season. They currently have the highest Valorant odds for a region to take home the trophy.