Lea is an esports journalist with too many interests and too little time. Covering esports stories for more than 3 years, she likes to spend her days (and nights) watching and analysing competitive VALORANT. Lea is also deeply invested in DEI issues and promoting mental health awareness within her industry.
Olivia Richman is a seasoned esports journalist who has worked with Inven Global, Esports Illustrated, Esports.gg, and more. As an editor and writer at Esports Insider, she loves telling unique esports stories, especially within the FGC. When not working and gaming, Olivia loves collecting Kirby plush, eating sushi, and driving her cars at the track.
Image Credit: Riot Games Last weekend’s VCT Americas matches sparked heated discussions within the global VALORANT esports community. With LOUD’s successful dark horse run in the Stage 2 Lower Playoffs Bracket all the way to a second-place finish, Masters London winner Leviatán was pushed out of VALORANT Champions qualification.
The Argentinian esports organization has now become the first team to win a Masters event and still miss out on Champions in the same year. This has led some VCT fans and professionals to advocate for revised qualification rules, especially around the distribution of VCT points.
Others, however, have argued that Leviatán alone is to blame for their disappointing end to the season. So, where lies the truth? Is VCT’s qualification path to Champions flawed?
With the Masters London trophy under its belt, Leviatán was considered a guaranteed Champions participant by many heading into VCT Americas Stage 2.
Thanks to its second place in Stage 1 (7 points) and its Masters title (8 points), the team had already collected 15 VCT Points in total. That was more than NRG (11 points) and G2 Esports (14 points) had at the time, although both organizations had a much stronger start to the VCT 2026 season compared to Leviatán.
For Leviatán to miss out on Champions Shanghai in September, dark horses with few points had to reach the top-2 while other historically strong rosters went on deep Stage 2 runs.
NRG and G2 Esports made it far into the Stage 2 Playoffs, earning an additional 10 and 7 points, respectively, for 21 points in total. Underdog 100 Thieves dominated in the Upper Playoffs Bracket and secured a top-2 finish early on.
Meanwhile, Leviatán lost its third Playoffs series to G2 Esports, leaving the team with only four extra points from its Stage 2 performance (19 in total) and unable to qualify for Champions via a top-2 placement.
ESTAMOS NO CHAMPIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/DeRtkJAwsG
The final piece of Leviatán’s nightmare puzzle was the young and hungry roster of LOUD. In front of its home crowd in São Paulo, the Brazilian squad defeated giants G2 Esports and NRG to guarantee at least second place in Stage 2.
With that, 100 Thieves and LOUD were in. NRG and G2 Esports took the region’s third and fourth seeds for Shanghai, and Leviatán was left behind with just 2 VCT Points less.
What feels so off about Leviatán failing to qualify for Champions 2026 is that this is actually a top team with the potential to go on a run in Shanghai. At the same time, Leviatán’s region, VCT Americas, turned out incredibly competitive towards the latter third of the season. Leviatán is a top roster globally — in Americas, it is just one of many top teams.
“The only thing that you take away from this is just that Americas is absolutely stacked, to be honest. For…