VCT Ascension EMEA kicks off June 22 between the 18 best teams of the region's Challenger Leagues. The last team standing after the end of this month-long competition will participate in the next two years of the VCT.
The 18 best teams are equally split between the nine leagues of EMEA, meaning each league drafted its two best teams to Ascension. The regional champions have been placed in the Ascension stage, while the second-best teams will have to go through the Play-Ins, hosted from June 22 to 27.
Play-Ins
The nine Play-Ins teams are evenly split in three groups, where each will play a Bo1 single round-robin. The best team from each group moves directly to the semifinals of Play-Ins, while the second-placed squads fight in another Bo1 single round-robin to determine the fourth team.
The semifinals will be Bo3 and the grand final Bo5. The winner of the Play-Ins will round out the Ascension teams lineup, as they will be the 10th team heading into the final rounds of the competition.
The Play-Ins groups are:
Group A
- FOKUS FOKUS Europe Rank #60 hoody Aaro Peltokangas YaBoiLewis Lewis Hughes Mistic James Orfila al0rante Felix Brandl xuss Tselmeg Tsolmon (Polaris)
- Team RA'AD Team RA'AD MENA Rank #3 Shalaby Mohamed Shalaby Shniider Yousef Osama chrollo Omar Hussein Depyro Nour Sherif SkaNoodles Yousef Mohamed Yassien Yassien Ahmed (MENA)
- GMT Esports GMT Esports Inactive N A I S Alessandro Montanari AFoxx Fábio Veigas (Italy)
Group B
- MOUZ MOUZ Europe Rank #6 Obnoks Nico Garczarczyk iluri Ilari Puranen Fizzy David Figueiredo starki Krzysztof Lewandrowski (DACH)
- S2G Esports S2G Esports Europe Rank #135 pAura Melih Karaduran reazy Kaan Ürpek Turko Mehmet Özen DeepMans Yiğithan Kesici (Turkey)
- GTZ Esports GTZ Esports Europe Rank #202 H4te Rodrigo Ribeiro Caim Hugo Fonseca (Portugal)
Group C
- Team Queso Team Queso Inactive mezoky Boom Daniel Jiménez (Spain)
- Mandatory Mandatory Europe Rank #26 CyvOph Clement Millard HyP Damien Souville thebigfiz Julien Auberton AKUMAAAAA Alex Lo Bello Goaster Tony Richard (France)
- Enterprise Esports Enterprise Esports Inactive LUKYYY Cantzer Václav Jan Stezka SH0UTyy Michal Glacner Hasaa Radim Haša Enrik Michal Vejvoda patagod Patrik Bojkovský (East)
Ascension
Once the 10th team has been selected, Ascension will follow a similar format. The 10 teams will be distributed between two groups of five, where a Bo3 single round-robin will let just four teams through to the playoffs. The groups will be played between June 30 and July 5
The final stage of Ascension EMEA will be hosted in the VCT EMEA Coliseum in Messe Berlin from July 13 to 17, with Bo3 semifinals and a Bo5 grand final.
The Ascension groups are:
Group A
- CGN Esports CGN Esports Europe Rank #5 elllement Dragan Milanović DaviH David Cruz BennY Benjamin Domgörgen Vince Vincent Kranz (DACH)
- Digital Athletics Digital Athletics Europe Rank #75 s0pp Efe Tur wezzy Arda Celbiş WerlasS Metin Ünal audaz Soner Ekiz pckwN Efekan Yorulmaz MerSa Mert Saatcı (Turkey)
- Acend Acend Inactive ALIVE Gilad Hakim musashi Alessio Xhaferi pyrolll Artur Minin cullumx Nikolaj Cullum Andersen chiwa Egor Stepanyuk (East)
- DSYRE DSYRE Europe Rank #4 caydeN Yari Olmi Tag Alessandro Voci wackie Rikardo Birjukov waddle Wadir Taraki (Italy)
- SAW SAW Inactive Fragger Henrique Correia brk Bruno Ferreira GrTw Tiago Costa Addicted Eduardo Torres Cunha20 David Cunha (Portugal)
Group B
- Apeks Apeks Europe Rank #2 hype Tautvydas Paldavicius MOLSI Michał Łącki AvovA Auni Chahade (Polaris)
- Case Esports Case Esports Inactive (Spain)
- Gentle Mates Gentle Mates Europe Rank #21 K4DAVRA Thomas Johner (France)
- Team Falcons Team Falcons Inactive (MENA)
- Play-Ins Team
The winners of the VCT Ascension EMEA will be awarded with a two-year pass to the VCT EMEA League, which will pivot to a two-split format from next year. The organization will receive similar benefits to the 10 VCT partners, while the team itself will have an equal opportunity to qualify for Masters and Champions in their two-year stint in Tier 1.