VALORANT Champions 2022 recap: LOUD and proud as Brazil take the win over NA

Sep 20, 2022

Dominating the playoffs stage from the get go, they took out Leviatán, DRX, and OpTic Gaming on their way to the finals, eventually meeting the North American titans once again in a rematch for the ages. Ultimately, OpTic fell before the final hurdle, heading back to the States in second place.

Miss any of the action? Or simply looking to relive one of the best VALORANT events in recent history? Here’s everything you need to know about what went down at Champions 2022.

VCT Champions: Final Placements

Below are the final placements for VALORANT Champions 2022 (yes EMEA fans, we’re crying too).

Turn up the volume: The rise of LOUD

One of the first major upsets of the tournament was APAC titans Paper Rex failing to make it out of groups. Taken down by Liquid and Leviatán, the squad crumbled under the weight of their reputation. 

Despite being frontrunners based on FPX winning VCT Stage 2 Masters, EMEA failed to get a team into the finals. While all three representatives got out of the group stages, FPX ended up in the Lower Bracket while Fnatic and Team Liquid found themselves in the top - but only briefly. 

Losing out to XSET and OpTic respectively, Fnatic and Liquid found themselves facing off against one another in the Lower Bracket. After a bittersweet series, Fnatic emerged victorious, sending Liquid packing after a dominant 2-0 win. Unfortunately, their victory was short-lived, as DRX came storming through the Lower Bracket, breaking their quarterfinals curse and knocking Fnatic out of the running in a heartbreaking reverse sweep.

All the while FPX were taking no prisoners, eliminating XSET and Leviatán to secure a semifinal spot. It was there they met DRX, and things quickly took a turn for the worst. Icebox was a back and forth affair (largely due to the heroics of Ardis ‘ardiis’ Svarenieks and Pontus ‘Zyppan’ Eek), but the team collapsed on Haven. Pulling out a left-field Viper pick, they won out on defense but failed to do anything at all on attack, with DRX pulling back all nine rounds and ultimately eliminating them in one of the most insane games we’ve ever seen. 

With the resident champions gone, EMEA wouldn’t be bringing the Champions title back home two years in a row, instead giving the stage over to NA, Brazil, or Korea. The Lower Bracket final determined that DRX wasn’t quite ready for the title yet, with OpTic eliminating them after a back and forth series that lasted the full five maps. Pulling two games back as darkness closed in, DRX took a respectable 10 rounds on final map Haven, but fell at the final hurdle.

The battle lines were drawn: OpTic vs LOUD, the rematch fans had been waiting for. Having failed to take a map from the Brazilian behemoths when they first met, OpTic pushed LOUD deep into overtime on the first and third maps, winning the second relatively smoothly. LOUD, however, thrived under the overtime pressure, biting back to take games one and three. Closing it out in dominant style on map four, Erick ‘aspas’ Santos’ Duelists simply proved too much for the North American squad, ultimately leaving them lagging in second place.

Hoisting the trophy high, LOUD showed us the beauty of an underdog story, proving that the top dogs aren’t invincible and that any region is capable of being crowned Champions! Be sure to jump back into VALORANT and channel your inner LOUD to close out these last few months of the year in style.

VCT Champions: Vods

If you missed out on any of the action, you can check out vods of the event on https://valorantesports.com/vods!