Riot announces finalized details for VCT Ascension Pacific

Riot has announced finalized plans for this year's VCT Ascension Pacific, which will be held in Jakarta.

The event was initially scheduled to be held in Tokyo but was relocated due to “significant event production delays and tournament quality concerns,” according to Riot. The event will now be held in Jakarta at the BritAma arena, which has a capacity of 5,000.

With the announcement, Riot also announced a finalized version of the ten-team, double-elimination format.

Riot says that teams were “grouped and drawn into brackets based on their region's results from last year's Ascension.”

Teams from the Singapore/Malaysia region and the Japan region also received byes as BLEED BLEED Asia-Pacific Unranked and SCARZ SCARZ Japan Unranked Medusa An Min-cheol (안민철) Anthem Yoshitaka Enomoto LOB Lim Byung-gun (임병건) Satwoshi Yoshiii John Yoshiharu Kawakami were the finalists from both regions last year. Additionally, teams from Thailand, Taiwan, South Korea, and India finished at the bottom of last year's group stage, meaning they were seeded as the lowest four teams in this year's competition.

The competition kicks off on Friday, September 20, and three matches will be played per day until the lower quarterfinals. All matches will be best-of-three, while the lower and grand finals will be best-of-five.

The winner of the grand finals on Sunday, September 29 will earn a spot in the VCT Pacific League next year.

The ten teams qualified for Ascension are:

RIDDLE ORDER RIDDLE ORDER Japan Unranked JoXJo Cho Byung-yeon (조병연) Minty Daiki Kato Caedye Amon Mateus Okakura Seoldam Park Sang-min (박상민) yatsuka
Sin Prisa Gaming Sin Prisa Gaming Korea Unranked Persia Yang Zi-on (양지온) margaret Kim Ji-woo (김지우) Dambi Lee Hyuk-kyu (이혁규) Francis Kim Mu-bin (김무빈) Ivy Park Sung-hyeon (박성현)
Revenant Esports Revenant Esports Asia-Pacific Unranked SkRossi Ganesh Gangadhar skillZ Jayanth Ramesh tricky Prish Valvani Paradox Kasif Sayyed
FULL SENSE FULL SENSE Asia-Pacific Unranked JohnOlsen Chanawin Nakchain Leviathan Thanyathon Nakmee aLerT Wattanachok Yingnakorn Potter Sutthichai Promsrikaew Sushiboys Panyawat Subsiriroj
BOOM Esports BOOM Esports Asia-Pacific Unranked dos9 Zhumagali Dastan Famouz Fikri Zaki Hamdani Shiro Hildegard Arnaldo NcSlasher Sheldon Andersen Chandra BerserX Rizkie Adla Kusuma
NAOS NAOS Asia-Pacific Unranked xavi8k Xavier Juan JA John Timothy Arone Mojer Jerome Literal Emman Emmanuel Morales Nexi Nathaniel Cabero
Rapid Lofi Rapid Lofi Asia-Pacific Unranked DaFt Huỳnh Tuấn Kiệt TRIPCIEW Vữ Minh Cường albus Trần Phúc Thiên Pr0digy Suka Nguyễn Văn Tiến gin Phan Văn Gin BánhMj
Disguised Disguised Asia-Pacific Unranked Vera Rodman Yap STYRON Tidus Goh crazyguy Ngô Công Anh Deryeon Derrick Yee wayne Wayne Chang
Oblivion Force Oblivion Force Asia-Pacific Unranked riyabtw ckuma CHAK CHIMEI Wong Chun Wai (王俊煒) Kiuuuu Yung Tsz Kiu (容子翘)
Justice For Tomorrow Justice For Tomorrow Inactive kiss murza RAMEN IKANA ANDY

article is a little bit misleading: "Teams from the Singapore/Malaysia region and the Japan region also received byes as BLEED and SCARZ were the finalists from both regions last year."

while those teams have the "top 2 seeds" there are actually 6 teams getting byes, not just 2

the main distinction that the top 2 seeds get is that if they lose their first match they go to lower round 2 instead of lower round 1

also for anyone confused about how seeding was done, the 4 regions that didn't qualify out of groups in ascension last year were Thailand, Taiwan, South Korea, and India, so those 4 regions were seeded as the bottom 4 in this year's Ascension

I do agree that doing a standard group stage format like last year is way better but if they are going to do 10 team double elim then this is probably the most "fair" way to seed it, since there's really no other way to do so.