Eight teams have punched their tickets into VCT North America Stage 3: Challengers 1. Those teams are:
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Version1
Version1 Inactive
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Inactive
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Envy
Envy Inactive Marved Jimmy Nguyen Victor Victor Wong crashies Austin Roberts FiNESSE Pujan Mehta yay Jaccob Whiteaker
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Pioneers
Pioneers Inactive jmoh Jason Mohandessi wedid Matthew Suchan thief Brady Dever Critical Tristan Trinacty
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XSET
XSET Inactive
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Rise
Rise Inactive
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Sentinels
Sentinels North America Rank #4 N4RRATE Marshall Massey bang Sean Bezerra Zellsis Jordan Montemurro zekken Zachary Patrone johnqt Mohamed Amine Ouarid
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Gen.G
Gen.G Korea Rank #1 Foxy9 Jung Jae-sung (정재성) t3xture Kim Na-ra (김나라) Munchkin Byeon Sang-beom (변상범) yoman Chae Young-moon (채영문) Karon Kim Won-tae (김원태)
Sentinels, XSET, Envy, and 100T qualified for the main event on Saturday. All four needed the full three maps to put away their opponents, all of which were underdogs to the eventual winners. Both Sentinels and Envy lost the first map and needed to win back-to-back maps to qualify for the main event.
Sunday saw V1, Gen.G, Rise, and the Kansas City Pioneers lock in their spots. Three of the matches were clean 2-0s; Gen.G was the lone team to need three maps after
Andbox
Andbox
Inactive
oderus
Chad Miller
mummAy
Anthony DiPaolo
Lear
Dayton Akau
Jonaaa6
Jonard Penaflor
vice
Daniel Kim
took an overtime win in the second map.
Envy and XSET continue their streaks of consistency in VCT qualifiers, having qualified for every Challengers main event thus far. The only Challengers events the two teams haven't played in have come after they have already qualified for the regional final for that stage.
Stage 3 Challengers 1 marks a return to Challengers consistency for Gen.G, who made all three Challengers main events in Stage 1 but fell one match short of qualification for both main events in Stage 2.
This is Rise's first ever qualification for a Challengers main event after nearly a year of gradual roster changes. The team features four players who have played in the highest tier of North American Valorant at some point in time.
The Kansas City Pioneers were the most surprising team to qualify by far. They upset
Immortals
Immortals
Inactive
in the Ro32 and then played against
VIRTUOSO
VIRTUOSO
Inactive
King
Aiden King
Eley
Zach Stauffer
DBK
Dylan Bazic-Kulangiev
Blahst
Nathan Brand
snxper
Louis Lama
, who were coming off an upset victory of their own, in the qualifying match. The team features three former eUnited players on the roster.
The eight teams will begin play in the main event next week. The first matches are set to begin July 8.