With every Last Chance Qualifier concluded, Riot Games has seeded the groups for Valorant Champions 2023 and also revealed the opening matchups.
This year's Champions groups and opening matches are:
Group A
- Paper Rex Paper Rex Asia-Pacific Unranked mindfreak Aaron Leonhart Jinggg Wang Jing Jie f0rsakeN Jason Susanto d4v41 Khalish Rusyaidee something Ilya Petrov (Pacific) vs. KRÜ Esports KRÜ Esports Latin America South Unranked keznit Angelo Mori Mazino Roberto Rivas adverso Benjamín Poblete mta Nicolás González Shyy Fabian Usnayo Melser Marco Eliot Machuca Amaro (Americas LCQ)
- EDward Gaming EDward Gaming China Unranked S1Mon Hsien Meng-Hsun (谢孟勋) ZmjjKK Zheng Yongkang (郑永康) nobody Wang Senxu (王森旭) CHICHOO Wan Shunzhi (万顺治) Smoggy Zhang Zhao (张钊) (China) vs. Giants Gaming Giants Gaming Inactive Redgar Igor Vlasov Fit1nho Adolfo Gallego nukkye Žygimantas Chmieliauskas hoody Aaro Peltokangas Cloud Kirill Nehozhin (EMEA LCQ #1)
Group B
- Evil Geniuses Evil Geniuses North America Unranked Derrek Derrek Ha NaturE Nicholas Garrison supamen Phat Le icy Jacob Lange yay Jaccob Whiteaker (Americas) vs. FunPlus Phoenix FunPlus Phoenix China Unranked Autumn Kale Dunne Life Qu Donghao (瞿东豪) AAAAY Zhang Yang (张杨) BerLIN Zhang Bolin (張柏霖) yosemite Wang Lei (王磊) (China)
- FUT Esports FUT Esports Europe Unranked xeus Doğan Gözgen MrFaliN Furkan Yeğen yetujey Eray Budak AtaKaptan Ata Tan cNed Mehmet Yağız İpek qRaxs Doğukan Balaban (EMEA) vs. T1 T1 Korea Unranked stax Kim Gu-taek (김구택) Meteor Kim Tae-oh (김태오) Sylvan Go Young-sup (고영섭) BuZz Yu Byeong-cheol (유병철) iZu Ham Woo-ju (함우주) (Pacific)
Group C
- FNATIC FNATIC Europe Unranked crashies Austin Roberts Boaster Jake Howlett kaajak Kajetan Haremski Chronicle Timofey Khromov Alfajer Emir Ali Beder (EMEA) vs. ZETA DIVISION ZETA DIVISION Japan Unranked Dep Yuma Hashimoto SugarZ3ro Shota Watanabe CLZ Hikaru Mizutani SyouTa Shota Aoki Xdll Yuto Mizomori (Pacific LCQ)
- NRG Esports NRG Esports North America Unranked FiNESSE Pujan Mehta s0m Sam Oh Verno Andrew Maust mada Adam Pampuch Ethan Ethan Arnold (Americas) vs. Bilibili Gaming Bilibili Gaming China Unranked B3ar Yang Zhanxiong (杨瞻雄) whzy Wang Haozhe (王昊哲) Levius Lu Yinzhong (卢胤中) rushia Wang Xiaojie (王晓杰) nephh Marcus Tan Knight Liu Yuxiang (刘宇翔) (China)
Group D
- Team Liquid Team Liquid Europe Unranked paTiTek Patryk Fabrowski kamyk Maks Rychlewski nAts Ayaz Akhmetshin Keiko Georgio Sanassy kamo Kamil Frąckowiak (EMEA) vs. Natus Vincere Natus Vincere Europe Unranked ANGE1 Kyrylo Karasov Shao Andrey Kiprsky Ruxic Uğur Güç hiro Emirhan Kat koalanoob Gianfranco Potestio (EMEA LCQ #2)
- DRX DRX Korea Unranked Flashback Cho Min-hyuk (조민혁) MaKo Kim Myeong-gwan (김명관) Athan Na Ha-jun (나하준) freeing No Ha-jun (노하준) HYUNMIN Song Hyun-min (송현민) (Pacific) vs. LOUD LOUD Brazil Unranked dgzin Douglas Silva v1nny Vínicius Gonçalves pANcada Bryan Luna tuyz Arthur Andrade cauanzin Cauan Pereira (Americas)
The groups were drawn following the same rules used for Masters Tokyo. Teams from the same region may not be placed in the same group, and will be moved to the next available slot. If they were drawn into the last slot of Group D, they will swap with the team immediately before them until the draw is declared valid. The only exception is for the EMEA LCQ #2 team, NAVI, which were placed in the same group as another EMEA team.
The seeding pools and regional rankings were determined by each team's Masters performance respective to their region's counterparts, with LCQ teams receiving the lowest regional seed.
Champions 2023 will use the same groups format of previous years, with four GSL-style groups that each qualify two teams to the playoffs. Riot has not confirmed if the eight-team playoffs stage will be single or double-elimination like in past years.
Valorant's capstone event of the year runs from August 6 to 27 in Los Angeles. Most of the competition will be held at the Shrine Auditorium, while the final three days of play will be hosted in the KIA Forum. Tickets are on sale and can be found here.