© 2026 Riot Games. All Rights Reserved.
© 2026 Riot Games. All Rights Reserved.
Champions İstanbul is right around the corner! Teams from around the world battled across seven regional Challengers events and five Last Chance Qualifiers to earn their spot at VALORANT’s second ever world championship! From August 31 - September 18, qualified teams will compete for points, prizes, and a chance to write their name in history!
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Champions İstanbul is the third global event of the 2022 VALORANT Champions Tour where the VALORANT World Champion will be crowned. Thousands of teams have been competing through seven regional VCT competitions for a chance to earn the Champions Trophy.
The tournament will consist of GSL style group play, followed by an eight team double elimination bracket. Teams were first sorted into four draw pools based on a combination of their respective final placements at Challenger and Masters events and the strength of their region.
Next each team in each pool was randomly drawn into one of the four groups (Groups A-D). If at any point a team was drawn into a group which already had a team from their region, then they were placed into the next alphabetically sequential group. If they are the final team to be drawn from their pool, they will be moved backwards through the groups until a valid group is landed on. Once a full pool has been drawn and becomes fully valid, the results of that pool are locked and cannot be moved.
During the Group Stage, teams will compete through a four team, double elimination bracket to identify two winners from each group. In the first round of each group, teams from Pool 1 will face teams from Pool 4 and teams from Pool 2 will face teams from Pool 3.
After the Group Stage, a random draw will seed the Knockout Stage. The four teams who will have advanced out of their group in 1st place will be randomly assigned a yet-to-be-determined 2nd place team from a different group. The teams then will play through an eight team double elimination bracket, with the first round seeing teams who placed 1st play against teams who placed 2nd.
An earlier announcement of the event had Champions İstanbul starting on September 2nd. To accommodate the double elimination format and provide more player breaks, the start date has been shifted to August 31st.
TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE:
Additional details about the match schedule will be posted in the coming days. Follow the below channels to get the latest information on Champions İstanbul.
HOW TO WATCH:
The tournament will be broadcast in many languages and the full list of channels can be found below.
Twitch
YouTube
