The open qualifier event for Valorant Champions Tour Stage 3 Challengers 1: North America is all set, to begin with, a total of 128 teams registered in a bid to qualify for the Challengers 1 event, to be held from July 8.
Among the participants are the champions of the Stage 2 Masters event, Sentinels who breezed past through Fnatic in the Grand Finals of the former. Cloud9 (Blue & White), Version1, NRG, T1, and Team SoloMid are the other highly-regarded organizations that will show up in the contention for the 8 open spots for the Challengers 1 event.
Teams to look out for
Cloud9 Blue
- Nathan “leaf” Orf
- Mitch “mitch” Semago
- Michael “poiz” Possis
- Son “xeta” Seon-ho
- Ricky “floppy” Kemery
- Erick “Xeppaa” Bach
- Yoon “Autumn” Eu-teum (Head Coach)
- James “JamezIRL” Macaulay (Assistant Coach)
Just before the start of the Stage 2 Challengers 2 event, Cloud9 added Ricky “floppy” Kemery to their Valorant division who replaced Skyler “Relyks” Weaver. Floppy’s addition indeed proved to be a kickstart for the whole team as they made it past the Challengers 2 event to qualify for the Challengers Finals.
Erick “Xeppaa” Bach who was also transferred from the CSGO team to Valorant will most likely debut for Cloud9 Blue, in their match against dotExE. The North American Organization is yet to release an official update on whether they would still field Michael “poiz” Possis as the sixth player.
T1
- Tyler “Skadoodle” Latham
- Rahul “curry” Nemani
- Timothy “autimatic” Ta
- Braxton “Brax” Pierce
- Anthony “dawn” Hagopian
- David Dennis (Head Coach)
T1 recently shuffled their roster with the additions of Anthony “dawn” Hagopian and Braxton “Brax” Pierce which saw them move Ha “Spyder” Jung-woo to the bench and part ways with Sam “DaZeD” Marine.
After spending almost three months with TSM, Brax who was released by T1 in February 2020 has been recalled by the Korean-North American side back to their Valorant division.
Sentinels
- Shahzeeb “ShahZam” Khan
- Hunter “SicK” Mims
- Jared “zombs” Gitlin
- Michael “dapr” Gulino
- Tyson “TenZ” Ngo
With already two Masters events in their bag and having qualified for the Valorant Champions 2021 (Nov 2021 – December 2021) , Sentinels would be looking to extend their prominence with Tyson “TenZ” Ngo joining the side on a permanent basis, previously on loan from Cloud9.
Team SoloMid
- James “hazed” Cobb
- Matthew “WARDELL” Yu
- Yassine “Subroza” Taoufik
- Taylor “drone” Johnson
- Sean “bang” Bezerra
After failing to qualify for the Stage 2 Masters in Reykjavik, TSM decided to bench Stephen “reltuC” Cutler and sign Sean “bang” Bezerra to their Valorant roster. This was followed by Braxton “Brax” Pierce joining T1 on a full-term basis after being earlier released by the former.
Recommended | Kjaerbye quits CSGO
