South America VCT LCQ will give Champions spot to one Brazilian or Latin American team

In a few months, 16 teams will head to Berlin for VALORANT Champions. For many of them, it will be a familiar stage. The vast majority of the 12 teams already qualified for the VALORANT Champions Tour’s first true world championship recently competed at Masters: Berlin. To learn more about the 12 teams already qualified for Champions, check out this article.

For teams who didn’t get to compete in Berlin, or ones who came up just a bit short, four regional Last Chance Qualifiers (LCQ) will mark the final chance teams have to play at Champions.

With only the top one or two teams from each region automatically making it through to Champions via circuit points, LCQ is how most teams will make good on the circuit points they accumulated throughout the year. This article will look at the South America LCQ, which includes teams from Brazil and Latin America, and which begins Oct. 11.

The teams

• Sharks Esports (Brazil)
• Havan Liberty (Brazil)
• Furia Esports (Brazil)
• Gamelanders Blue (Brazil)
• Six Karma (LATAM)
• Australs (LATAM)
• Infinity (LATAM)
• LAZER (LATAM)

Four teams from Brazil’s circuit points standings and four from Latin America’s make up this eight team LCQ. With Brazil’s international success in CS:GO, the region was thought to be one of the strongest going into VALORANT. At Masters: Reykjavík, Brazil received two slots along with North America and EMEA. But Brazil hasn’t made good on their perceived regional strength.

Brazil is 2-8 across four teams and two international tournaments. The two wins came over Southeast Asia’s X10 Esports and Japan’s ZETA DIVISION, two of the weakest teams to make an international tournament. Latin America has only sent one team, KRÜ Esports, which have represented the region in both tournaments. With a combined record of 3-4, including two wins over Brazilian teams, KRÜ Esports are clearly a better team than any team from Brazil right now. In addition, KRÜ’s four losses came to Fnatic, Team Liquid, Envy and G2 Esports. It’s hard to blame them for any of those losses.

This LCQ is interesting because it's the first time we get to see any LATAM team outside of KRÜ Esports play teams from another region. Are KRÜ far and away better than any other LATAM team or is the region actually stronger than Brazil overall? This tournament should answer that question.

The favorite

I’ll put my money where my mouth is. I’ve got the Chilean team Australs. KRÜ Esports have consistently impressed me in international competition to a level that no Brazilian team has. Australs actually beat KRÜ back in the LATAM Challengers Playoffs upper bracket. KRÜ then went to the lower bracket, beat Six Karma and took down Australs in the rematch during the grand finals. That was LATAM’s only spot in Berlin and, seeing how KRÜ Esports then advanced to the bracket stage, it would have been great to see what Australs could have done. The squad is crazy flexible with most players having 3+ agents in their pool. If LATAM is truly better than Brazil right now, and Australs is the next-best team in LATAM, this is their chance to prove it.

The contenders

Six Karma are the other team from LATAM worth watching. With a majority Colombian roster, Six Karma won the Latin America North Stage 1 Masters under the name LDM Esports while Australs won LATAM South Stage 2 Masters. Since being acquired by Six Karma, the roster has been in contention during both Stage 2 and Stage 3 but hasn’t advanced past the semifinals. Of the four LATAM teams, they are clearly up there with Australs on another tier although the region has seen a fair amount of parity underneath KRÜ Esports.

Brazil, despite the international flops, still has two teams locked into Champions already. Team Vikings, who won one match in Iceland and Vivo Keyd who won Brazil’s other international match in Berlin. With neither team in this field, I’m actually going with Furia Esports here. They haven’t made an international LAN, unlike Sharks Esports and Havan Liberty, but they’ve been close each stage. In Brazil’s Stage 3 Challengers Playoffs, Furia beat both Sharks and Gamelanders before losing to Havan Liberty in the upper bracket final.

Havan Liberty belongs here as well. It wasn’t pretty in Berlin for Havan Liberty as they lost 2-0, 2-0 to 100 Thieves and Crazy Raccoon. But they did sweep Furia in the upper bracket of Brazil’s Challengers Playoffs 3-0. Losing to Crazy Raccoon isn’t the worst loss, but it’s one of the losses that has pushed Brazil down the regional power rankings. This is their chance to regain some of that respect.

The long shots

Sharks Esports may have the most circuit points of any of the Brazilian teams in this field but that’s only thanks to qualifying for Iceland. Funny enough, Sharks played the first map of any Brazilian team in international competition and played great, beating Korea’s Nuturn 13-5. But they lost the next two maps by the same score. Then they got dropped to the lower bracket where they lost to KRÜ Esports 13-5, 13-6. That was where Brazil’s international woes began, and the team has made zero changes since then, despite an early exit in Brazil’s Challengers Playoffs.

Gamelanders Blue round out the Brazilian teams. Featuring the CS legend Leonardo “mwzera” Serrati, his skills, like the skills of the region, just haven’t translated as well to VALORANT as people expected. Since finishing second in Brazil’s Stage 1 Masters, Gamelanders Blue have been eliminated early in both the Stage 2 and Stage 3 Challengers Playoffs.

Infinity are a Costa Rican esports organization featuring a Colombian roster. Outside of EMEA, LATAM certainly has the most interesting mixes of countries and rosters of any region. Infinity were the team that missed out in Iceland due to LATAM only getting one spot in the event. They competed in every stage but were taken down by Australs and Six Karma in Stage 3 Challengers Finals.

LAZER are a Mexican esports organization with players from four different countries. They haven’t had any signature win but managed to get into this LCQ by accumulating just enough circuit points in each stage. So far, there’s no reason to believe they can beat the rest of the teams in this field.

Lead photo credit: Riot Games