Eight teams from all over SEA have settled into their spots in the SEA Challengers Playoffs following the conclusion of the group stages two days ago. Only two will continue their journey and head to Berlin for the second international Valorant LAN to represent Southeast Asia.

The teams are:

Group A

Group A saw Inactive dominate the competition with six map wins over their opponents, netting them a +26 round difference compared to other teams and giving them a comfortable first seed in Group A to secure a spot in the playoffs. On the other hand, CBT Gaming CBT Gaming Inactive Yuicaw Huang Yung-chieh (黃湧傑) BerLIN Zhang Bolin (張柏霖) Ra1ny Li Guo-Shuo (李國碩) came into Group A as one of the underdogs and managed to snag two wins against Sharper Esport Sharper Esport Asia-Pacific Rank #44 niffy Patcharapon Junman LBY Eisuke Kuraoka qq Phoomphat Phodjanat Siraww Siraphop Honghirun , whom many expected to make it as the second seed, as well as against EGO EGO Inactive Real8 Vũ Ngọc Đức Hiếu Ko0 Nguyễn Công Minh JASONTRUONG , Vietnam's third seed. The group's top two seeds proved their strength by not dropping a single map against Group A's other two teams.

Group B

The powerhouses of ONIC G ONIC G Inactive , FULL SENSE FULL SENSE Asia-Pacific Rank #1 Leviathan Thanyathon Nakmee Laz Kittikawin Jirawatkakan Killua Tanate Teerasawad seph1roth Chinnakrit Phoojaroen Potter Sutthichai Promsrikaew , and Paper Rex Paper Rex Asia-Pacific Rank #6 mindfreak Aaron Leonhart Jinggg Wang Jing Jie f0rsakeN Jason Susanto d4v41 Khalish Rusyaidee something Ilya Petrov headlined Group B, leaving one team without much hope of shining in the group stage. Inactive had an abysmal performance in Group B and dropped all six maps against their opponents, ending their journey with a 36-round deficit. Paper Rex led the charge with a tie against FULL SENSE and subsequently a win against ONIC, cementing themselves as the first seed. ONIC's defeat to Paper Rex was enough to leave them outside of Group B's top two, leaving Indonesia's number one seed out of playoffs contention. FULL SENSE came in second, further establishing them and Paper Rex as two of the most consistent teams in the Southeast Asia region.

Group C

Group C was dubbed the event's "group of death" because of the presence of SEA's Masters 2: Reykjavik representatives X10 Esports X10 Esports Inactive Vera Rodman Yap Tempz Pierre Heng RedKoh Danial Hakim wayne Wayne Chang Egoist Javier Chua in it. Despite Patiphan "Patiphan" Chaiwong not being able to play due to an injury, X10 still looked relatively strong and dominated their local region at Challengers 1 securing the first seed in their country.

Unfortunately, things did not turn out their way as X10 dropped and drew their matches against BOOM Esports BOOM Esports Asia-Pacific Rank #2 dos9 Zhumagali Dastan Famouz Fikri Zaki Hamdani Shiro Hildegard Arnaldo NcSlasher Sheldon Andersen Chandra BerserX Rizkie Adla Kusuma , Team Big BAAM Team Big BAAM Asia-Pacific Rank #27 invisible LilHieu Lưu Chí Hiếu KimHung2k5 , and Galaxy Racer Galaxy Racer Inactive Yohann Ronard Tecson Emman Emmanuel Morales Georggyyy George Audrey Lachica Ching Enrico Perez Karl Carlo Ocampo . Their match against Galaxy Racer was particularly heartbreaking for the fan favourites when the team forfeited Haven win (13-11) because of their use of a Cypher camera exploit on Breeze. As a consequence, the score was changed to 13-10, giving the win to Galaxy Racer, with the score reflecting on how many rounds X10 had won by using the exploit. X10's playoff hopes were dashed thanks to a draw with BOOM and BAAM's victory over Galaxy Racers. BAAM qualified as Group C's first seed and BOOM moved on as the second, narrowly nudging past X10 by just one round.

Group D

UwU UwU Inactive jarpiX Pooi Shen Jie Justin FirstLove Darren Mok Yong Xiang Zeno Yu Zhijun (余智竣) bbalto Haiqal Nagib and Oasis Gaming Oasis Gaming Asia-Pacific Rank #34 Zeus slathom999 Shawn Dale Bolondro astr0 Franz del Rosario tesseract Jon Michael Piga marky Mark Anthony Tuling entered Group D as fresh faces to the regional competition, joining the veteran teams of Alter Ego Alter Ego Asia-Pacific Rank #4 Nakya Alehandro Fabian Simanjorang adrnking Adrian Setiawan sayoo Willy Ivandra Cud Thomas Alfiantino gotten Davin and CERBERUS Esports CERBERUS Esports Inactive viness Nguyễn Trung Tín alyaL Hoàng Đức Hùng ting2k5 Dường Mạnh Thắng . Oasis entered as the Philippines' third seed, while UwU was entering the group stage on a hot streak after taking down Paper Rex 3-1 in their local playoffs.

Donovan "FANE" Chia, one of UwU's founding members, wound up unable to play in any official matches of the group stage because of compulsory military conscription. Despite having a solid replacement and substitute in Ashraf "acApp" Firdaus, UwU fell short of making it to the playoffs after tying all their matches in the group stages. Instead CERBERUS and Alter Ego qualified out of Group D, the former doing so by beating Alter Ego 14-12 on Ascent.

The journey continues

The SEA Challenger Playoffs continue on Thursday, with Team Big BAAM taking on FULL SENSE at 11:00AM GMT+8.