We recently announced our Challengers Path to Champions that is going to shake things up for our Challengers leagues.

If you haven’t already seen it, here’s a quick recap - going forward, instead of qualifying through Ascension, Challengers teams will now have an opportunity to fight for slots at the International Leagues’ Stage 2 Playoffs leading to Champions.

As announced here, each International League will be giving 4 slots to Challengers teams. In Asia Pacific we will be splitting the slots as follows.

The top team from Challengers Southeast Asia, Japan, and Korea will each be given a direct slot in Stage 2 Playoffs. 

The fourth and final slot will be determined by a Last Chance Qualifier between the best team from South Asia, Oceania, and the 2nd and 3rd seeds from Southeast Asia.

Given the number of highly competitive regions we have in APAC, we focused on finding a balance between recognising regions with a track record of competitive strength, while also ensuring other regions still have a chance to prove themselves and earn a slot. And in the case of Southeast Asia, which has such a large player base and many subregions, we wanted to provide an opportunity to fight for more than 1 slot.

Apart from having a chance to compete at the international league level and potentially qualifying for Champions, each Challengers team that manages to reach Stage 2 Playoffs will be given a USD 75,000 stipend.

Academy teams will still be included in Challengers leagues, but they cannot qualify for Stage 2 Playoffs. And to foster a more equitable Challengers ecosystem, we will be removing relegation protection for Academy teams in 2026. So if an Academy team finishes at the bottom of their regional Challengers, they will need to fight to keep their slot.

Each region's Challengers format will be announced locally in the near future.

Changes to Challengers Southeast Asia

We are also making some changes to Challengers Southeast Asia next year that we hope will create even more opportunities for local teams and players.

We’ll be pivoting towards a tournament model that consists of a mix of local events that funnel up into pan-regional matches over two splits.

Qualification for Challengers Southeast Asia will start at the local level where teams will fight through an open qualifier. 

Successful teams will then play in a local qualifying tournament. This is also where Southeast Asian Academy teams will begin.The 2 best teams from each local qualifier will then move on to Challengers Southeast Asia, which will be structured as a 12 team tournament.

This process repeats for each split. 

We are launching 5 local qualifying tournaments for Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines. The final qualifier will be made up of all the other remaining Southeast Asian regions.

Players can also climb the ranks and qualify through Premier regardless of the residency. 2 of the best Premier teams from the corresponding Episode will qualify for each Challengers Southeast Asia split. 

Our goal with this new structure is to be more intentional about bringing representation to Challengers Southeast Asia, while creating more room for competition and talent development at the local level.

We also recognise that streaming exclusivity was a pain point for our teams and fans this year. So we are lifting exclusivity for Challengers Southeast Asia next year and will be working with local partners to provide local language broadcasts for our community. 

We appreciate your continued passion as we navigate these changes and hope you’ll join us next year to see how Challengers teams will shake things up at VCT Pacific Stage 2 Playoffs.