Photo by Riot Games/VCT China

VCT China will end its year in the lovely city of Chengdu, known for the spice of its local delicacies and the charm of its giant pandas. The Play-Ins, running from August 5-12, will determine which teams advance to the playoffs, which begin on the 14th. Matches will be held in the Chengdu Chengbei Gymnasium up until the second week of playoffs, with matches from the 19th onwards being played in the Chengdu Financial City Arena.

With the Play-Ins starting soon, here is what you can expect from the last station of this year’s VCT CN roadshow:

Play-ins

Beginning on August 5, the Play-Ins will include seeds five through 12 of the Stage 2 group stage as well as the top two teams from the Valorant China National Tournament. The tournament will be played in a double-elimination format and will determine which teams will fill the final four playoff spots.

The two VCNT teams will have an opportunity to show their potential on the first day of play-ins, going up against the bottom two teams from the VCT CN group stage. A Team, the second seed from the VCNT, will take on 11th-seed Trace Esports for the first match of the Play-Ins, followed by VCNT winners KeepBest Gaming taking on 12th-seed Titan Esports Club.

Related: KeepBest and A Team? Your guide to the VCT China Stage 2 Play-In teams

The second day of play-ins will consist of some repeat matches from the group stage. Seventh-seed FunPlus Phoenix will go up against 10th-seed JDG Esports. The pair played each other in the second match of the group stage, with FPX winning 2-0. Eighth-seed Wolves Esports will go up against ninth-seed Dragon Ranger Gaming later that day. The two teams also played in the group stage, with a new-look Wolves team pulling out the win in three maps.

As the top two seeds going into play-ins, Edward Gaming and All Gamers do not yet know their opponents for their first matches of play-ins. Sixth-seeded AG will play the winner of the game between AT and TE, while fifth-seeded EDG will play either KBG or TEC.

The only team that has little to lose during its play-ins run is EDG, as they have already punched a ticket to Champions Shanghai after earning enough Champions points to secure their spot. The roster is now simply playing for a good Stage 2 result to end the domestic year with a high.

As for the rest of the teams, the remainder of their year and perhaps even their partnership hopes for next year lie in their play-in results. 

For the two Tier 2 teams, this will be their first opportunity to play in front of the huge VCT CN crowd. They have the chance to make an incredibly difficult run and fight through Tier 1 teams to reach the playoffs, where a top-two finish is needed to reach Champions.

For Tier 1 teams, many in this tournament know what it is like to compete internationally and will chase the opportunity to attend another. This includes AG and DRG, who represented the region during the first and second Masters tournaments of this year, respectively. 

There is also FPX, which attended every international tournament in 2024 but has not made it back since, and Wolves, who had their famous Cinderella run at Masters Toronto before returning to their spot near the bottom of the region.

Even the 11th-seeded TE, who went winless in the group stage until seeding matches, was a well-known name internationally for a brief period. The team showed a shockingly good performance at Champions Seoul 2024, followed by a disastrous run at Masters Bangkok. Since then, the team has struggled to perform, despite changes to its roster aimed at improving its results.

TEC and JDG are the two teams in the play-ins lineup that have never attended a Masters or Champions event. Despite both teams having employed a variety of very solid rosters throughout the years, neither has been able to bring it over the line when it came to qualifying for internationals in the VCT circuit. 

Each team has a reason to fight and has something to prove. Only four of these 10 teams will have the chance to progress to the playoffs and keep their international hopes alive.

Playoffs

While playoffs do not begin until August 14, there are already four teams that have locked their place in the tournament by finishing in the top two of their groups.

Nova Esports ended the group stage as the top-seeded team following the group stage and the seeding matches, carrying a 6-0 record and only dropping two maps the entire event. The team has not lost a match since the Esports World Cup qualifiers back in May, when it lost 1-2 against FPX. NOVA is currently on a nine-match win streak, having also won Act 2 of the China Evolution Series before Stage 2. 

As a team that has historically struggled to even make the playoffs, the current form of NOVA is one that is unusual and unnerving. Young talent swagzor looks especially terrifying, having been named the MVP of both the EVO Series Act 2 grand finals as well as Stage 2 Changsha as a whole. 

From almost picking up just one win in Stage 1 to becoming the highest seed of the Stage 2 group stage, the improvement of the team is staggering. Champions Shanghai, which once looked so far away for the roster, is now within arm’s reach.

Bilibili Gaming will go into the playoffs as the second seed, showing a great performance in Stage 2 after losing out on Stage 1 playoffs by way of a tiebreaker. After losing its opening match against DRG and then winning the next game against WOL, whzy vowed during an interview that the team would “make it through to playoffs without another loss”, a promise that he has since kept. BLG won its next three matches to top Group Omega.

Despite losing the seeding match against NOVA, BLG looks strong going into the playoffs, with nephh and whzy both making it to the top of the region at various points during the group stage. As a team that has attended the past three Champions tournaments, qualifying for Shanghai is surely at the front of everyone’s minds. 

Xi Lai Gaming is the 3rd seed of the Stage 2 group stage. The team has had a slightly rocky performance after needing to adapt to the tight turnaround of several back-to-back tournaments. Despite losing their opening match to TEC, the team was able to get back on track quickly, only losing one other match to BLG.

XLG achieved a second-place finish in Kickoff and Stage 1, qualifying them to both internationals this year. The team also went on to break its curse of poor international performances, ending in 5th-6th place in Masters London. 

With such a strong record throughout the year, XLG has only been a step away from qualifying to Champions Shanghai throughout the entire group stage, just barely not being able to punch its ticket to the event after some unfortunate losses. While the team, currently second in the Championship Points standings, will still very likely make it to Champions, being unable to confirm their spot in the group stage means they must still be careful during playoffs.

TYLOO is the final team that secured a spot in playoffs, going in as the 4th seed. This was another team that had an unexpected showing in the group stage, making it through flawlessly until being stopped by NOVA. The roster looks extremely strong after adding SiuFatBB as its in-game leader, a role that TYLOO had always struggled to fill properly.

While TYLOO has had solid group stage performances in the past, where it has truly struggled is keeping up that form through the playoffs. If the team wants to have a shot at making Champions, it must keep up the revitalized state that was shown in the group stage.

Up next

With Chengdu being the final station in the VCT CN roadshow of 2026, which has been a huge success in every city that has hosted so far, the Play-Ins and playoffs of Stage 2 are bound to be a sight to behold. Whether it be the venue, production, or the matches themselves, expect greatness because VCT China always finds a way to impress.

Champions is right around the corner, and with the 2026 location in Shanghai, the region’s teams are bound to give it their all to represent their region in the final tournament of the year, held in their home country.  

VCT CN Chengdu will begin soon, with the opening matches of the play-ins on August 5.