The opening day of the Valorant Champions Tour North America Stage 3's Challengers Playoffs kicked off with strong showings from the favorite teams, with the region's first two delegates to Berlin now decided.

All four teams that qualified for the Stage 3 Playoffs through Challengers 1 advanced to the upper bracket's semifinals, banishing all four teams from Challengers 2 to the lower bracket.

Subsequently, the upper semifinals played out to determine two of the teams who would qualify for Masters: Berlin. Both Sentinels and 100 Thieves survived scares from their new-look opponents, who were Envy and XSET respectively.

Every team favored in the majority of VLR.gg pick'ems won their matches today, including in the upper semifinals. While many of the day's matches were close, the teams who ended up on top were the ones fans expected to do so.

Opening Round

Sentinels vs. Rise (2-1 Sentinels)

The matchup between Sentinels Sentinels North America Rank #2 TenZ Tyson Ngo Zellsis Jordan Montemurro zekken Zachary Patrone johnqt Mohamed Amine Ouarid Sacy Gustavo Rossi and Rise Rise Inactive was one made up of blowouts. Sentinels jumped out to a 10-0 lead on the first map, Breeze, before closing it out 13-3. Ascent began with a close 6-6 first half, but then Rise won the first six rounds of the second half en route to a 13-7 victory. Sentinels responded by going up 10-1 on Bind to close out the series with a 13-4 third map victory.

The match was another flex of Sentinels' roster depth, with the team experimenting with a KAY/O pick on Hunter "SicK" Mims for Ascent. Michael "dapr" Gulino led the way for his team in the opening two maps while Tyson "TenZ" Ngo remained uncharacteristically quiet. But the silence wouldn't last, as TenZ exploded in the third map with 339 ACS, while outputting more than 200 damage per round, allowing for dapr to have a quiet map at no cost to the team.

Envy vs. TSM (2-1 Envy)

Jaccob "yay" Whiteaker made his Envy Envy Inactive Marved Jimmy Nguyen Victor Victor Wong crashies Austin Roberts FiNESSE Pujan Mehta yay Jaccob Whiteaker debut in the day's other opening match when his team took on a hot TSM TSM North America Rank #12 seven Johann Hernandez gMd Anthony Guimond sym Tyler Porter POISED Kevin Ngo aproto Alex Protopapas squad. And, at least one match into his Envy career, he appears to be a good pickup.

yay went an even 8-8 in Operator duels with one of the world's most iconic sniper players, Matthew "WARDELL" Yu. Outside of their duels, yay racked up eight more Operator kills than WARDELL.

His sniping helped Envy take the lead early with a 13-7 victory on Haven. TSM held off an Envy comeback on Breeze to win the map 13-11 and tie the series at one map a piece, but Envy pulled ahead on Ascent to eventually win the map 13-8 and the series 2-1.

TSM's newest additions, Sean "bang" Bezerra and Aleko "LeviathanAG" Gabuniya, appeared to need some time to adjust to the biggest tournament of their careers thus far, as both players looked uncharacteristically off. They ended up at the bottom of the scoreboard across most statistical categories.

100 Thieves vs. FaZe Clan (2-0 100T)

The opening pair of 2-1 matches were the last on the day, a change that began with 100 Thieves' 2-0 victory over FaZe. 100 Thieves 100 Thieves North America Rank #9 bang Sean Bezerra Cryocells Matthew Panganiban eeiu Daniel Vucenovic Boostio Kelden Pupello Asuna Peter Mazuryk never let FaZe Clan FaZe Clan Inactive POISED Kevin Ngo mummAy Anthony DiPaolo TiGG Tanner Spanu BABYBAY Andrej Francisty supamen Phat Le threaten them after inching out a 7-5 lead in the opening half of the match, winning each of the following halves much more comfortably.

The match was Hunter "Inspire" Schline's first in a regional playoffs after he joined FaZe shortly before the start of Stage 3. Despite that, he wasn't phased by nerves or pressures.

"There's no pressure really," BabyJ said. "I know I'm surrounded by great players. So we just have to execute what we practice. I mean, I've been here before too — plenty of LAN events and stuff from my Halo career. So no nerves ever, you know what I mean? If we lose it's straight just not executing the plan as well as we could have."

Although BabyJ shined individually, he pointed out that he failed to execute his plan as well as he wanted and didn't elevate his teammates to the level he wanted to.

100 Thieves, on the other hand, had no problems elevating Peter "Asuna" Mazuryk.

Asuna became the difference maker in the second map with a dominant 28-13 K/D he earned thanks to his contribution of over 220 damage outputted each round.

The series was only the second Bo3 between the two teams. The only other time they played in a full match was a 3-0 Stage 1 Challengers 3 grand finals victory for FaZe, near the tailend of their hot streak in Stage 1.

100 Thieves' revenge came a little late... but better late than never.

XSET vs. Luminosity (2-0 XSET)

XSET XSET Inactive started and ended the match hot: they got ahead 9-2 to start the first map and then later won the final six rounds of the second and final map of the match. Their momentum-based play propelled them to a clean 2-0 sweep.

Zachary "zekken" Patrone's performed well in his first ever regional final match, leading the way for XSET in kills. Luminosity Luminosity Inactive moose Kaleb Jayne mada Adam Pampuch dazzLe Will Loafman bdog Brandon Sanders TiGG Tanner Spanu , on the other hand, relied on team veteran Diondre "YaBoiDre" Bond to shine as the team's lone duelist on both maps.

"I've just been trying to do the best I can to not let my team down," YaBoiDre said. "I like the pressure. I know that I can rise to that occasion, and I'm just trying my best to do that."

Despite his strong individual performance, the firepower of the XSET team was just too much for him and his teammates to overcome.

Upper Semifinals

Sentinels vs. Envy (2-0 Sentinels)

While the two upper semifinal matches both ended 2-0, they were each as close as a 2-0 series possibly could be.

Neither Sentinels nor Envy could manage to get breathing room on Icebox, a map that ultimately fell 13-11 in favor of Sentinels. Haven was much streakier with each team trading runs that lasted for multiple rounds before it eventually settled into another 13-11 for Sentinels.

yay was once again the star for Envy, but Sentinels were led by a different player than in the first match as SicK took upon himself the mantle of hero. He clutched out a match-leading four rounds and was the only Sentinels player to finish with a positive K/D on the tight second map.

Sentinels' ability to clutch out maps was enough to propel them into the upper bracket finals and to Masters Berlin to defend their LAN title. Envy still has a shot at both the Challengers Playoffs title and qualification for Berlin through the lower bracket.

100 Thieves vs. XSET (2-0 100T)

Much like in the other upper semifinal, the final score doesn't accurately portray how tight the match was. 100 Thieves 100 Thieves North America Rank #9 bang Sean Bezerra Cryocells Matthew Panganiban eeiu Daniel Vucenovic Boostio Kelden Pupello Asuna Peter Mazuryk nudged past XSET XSET Inactive with two straight 13-11 map victories.

XSET jumped out to a commanding 9-3 lead on Haven, but was slowly reeled in by 100T over the course of the second half. Despite nearly reaching map point at 11-9, XSET was unable to close Haven and wound up losing the first map.

100T carried that momentum into Ascent and took a 12-5 lead for match point early. The following round, with the score at 12-6, forced Rory "dephh" Jackson into a tense 1v2 against Joshua "steel" Nissan and Spencer "Hiko" Martin to keep the match going. dephh kept his cool and won the round.

"I just knew that that might be the momentum that pushes us through to push it into overtime," dephh said afterward. "I think after that round, I just decided that we were going to play pretty fast. Then we kind of hit that flow state where we were just going for it."

XSET won six straight rounds to bring the second map into striking distance, but ultimately fell just short to a 3K spray down from Nick "nitr0" Cannella. It was enough for 100 Thieves to put XSET to rest and win the map 13-11 and the match 2-0.

And with that win, the star-studded 100 Thieves roster finally secured itself a place in its first ever Valorant LAN.

Looking Ahead

Four lower bracket matches are on the schedule for Thursday. The winner of Rise and TSM will go on to play XSET, while the winner of FaZe and Luminosity will play against Envy. Sentinels and 100 Thieves get a two day break before their upper final duel.

Just over 20% of pick'em brackets are still perfect and nearly 80% of brackets have either Sentinels or 100 Thieves winning the upper bracket final.

Nearly 76% of brackets pick Sentinels to win the tournament.