VALORANT Masters Bangkok 2025: teams, format and all you need to know

VALORANT Masters Bangkok is the first international event of the 2025 VALORANT Champions Tour (VCT), the top echelon of Riot Games’ tactical shooter. 

Spanning almost two weeks from February 20th to March 2nd, eight of VCT’s best-performing teams from all regions will compete for its $500,000 (~£404,400) prize pool, with the winner taking home $250,000 (~£202,200).

Now that the four VCT Kickoff events (Pacific, China, EMEA and Americas) have declared their champions and representatives, here’s everything you need to know ahead of VALORANT Masters Bangkok 2025.

This year’s event is hosted at the UOB LIVE in Bangkok, Thailand, making it the first Masters event for the Southeast Asian country.

This is going to be the eighth Masters competition since its inception in 2021 and the third time in the last three years that it takes place in Asia after Tokyo 2023 and Shanghai 2024.

Overall, the VCT hasn’t made major changes to its calendar in 2025. However, its schedule has been slightly shifted, meaning that VALORANT’s first Masters event is occurring two weeks earlier than last year’s Masters Madrid, which took place in March.

During the tournament’s first week, the eight participating teams will compete in a Swiss Stage bracket with all matches being best-of-three (BO3). 

Teams need to record two wins to advance to the Playoffs, with two losses eliminating an organisation from the tournament. 

Following the Swiss Stage, the four remaining teams will advance to the Playoffs to compete in a double-elimination bracket. 

The Grand Final will take place on Sunday, March 2nd and will be a best-of-five (B05) series. Moreover, a show match will take place before the finals in a bid to hype up the crowd.

Swiss Stage: February 20th – February 24th (2AM PST / 10 AM BST start time)

Playoffs : February 27th (2AM PST / 10 AM BST start time)

Upper Finals / Lower Semis: February 28th (2AM PST / 10 AM BST start time)

Lower Finals: March 1st (2AM PST / 10 AM BST start time)

Grand Finals + Show match: March 2nd (2AM PST / 10 AM BST start time)

By viewing the tournament on Twitch and YouTube, fans will be able to earn two in-game drops. 

Watching from February 27th to March 1st will earn fans the ‘Crispy’ title. Meanwhile, watching the finals on March 2nd will reward fans with the Tuktuk spray. The spray features Wingman giving Clove, Jett, Harbor, and Gekko a ride on the iconic three-wheeler that is common on the streets of Bangkok

This international event features the eight best teams from each region of play: Americas, China, EMEA and Pacific. 

48 rosters in total competed in the four Kickoff events — 10 partner teams per region and promoted Ascension organisations. For this event, one team in particular proved that it is possible to climb the competitive ladder in VALORANT despite limited promotion opportunities. 

Alongside the prize pool, VALORANT Master Bangkok also provides a crucial opportunity to earn Championship Points.

Rewarded to the top four teams, depending on their placement, Championship points have been given a higher priority in 2025. Two teams from each region will qualify for Champions Paris in 2025 through Championship Points.  

1st Place: 5 Championship Points

2nd Place: 3 Championship Points

3rd Place: 2 Championship Points

4th Place: 1 Championship Point

The first two teams to qualify for Master Bangkok came from VCT China with Trace Esports and eventual Kickoff winner, EDward Gaming, securing a place in the event. 

Trace Esports, the first team that qualified for the international event, were strong performers in the competition, even knocking EDward Gaming to the loser bracket.

However, EDward Gaming, still riding the momentum from being crowned 2024 VALORANT world champions, enacted revenge by beating Trace 3-1 in the final. Zheng ‘ZmjjKK’ Yongkang from EDward Gaming racked up the most kills in the tournament with 313 eliminations using Neon, Jett and Raze, the latter of which is an agent that is defining the meta at the moment.

In VCT Pacific, DRX qualified as the first seed after beating T1 in the Grand Finals 3-2.

Both teams had very comparable performances in the Pacific Kickoff. Moreover, both of its clashes in the tournament (the Upper Bracket Final and the Grand Final) went to the very last game with DRX securing both wins by a thin margin. 

T1 was a favourite to take home the Kickoff trophy following a strong showing of results in the offseason and during the event. DRX’s performance, meanwhile, caused quite a surprise. The team comfortably defeated fellow Korean organisations Nongshim RedForce and Gen.G before sending T1 to the lower bracket and beating the organisation again in the final in two close series.

G2 Esports reigned supreme over the Americas Kickoff event with a dominant performance that saw the team dropping a total of two games, both of which were in the grand final. 

The team has become the first-ever Ascension side to win a VCT title after missing the mark twice in the VCT 2024 Americas Stage 1 and Stage 2. The second roster to qualify for the Masters Bangkok was the team G2 dropped those games to: fan-favourite Sentinels. 

The team struggled a little during the tournament but put on a solid performance making Sentinels valid contenders for the next international. G2 Esports and Sentinels will now have to face off against Trace Esports and DRX, respectively at the Masters in Bangkok.

VCT EMEA Kickoff was the last event to take place and saw Team Vitality and Team Liquid emerge as the proud owners of a ticket to Bangkok. 

Team Vitality got off to a strong start with a series of dominant victories in the upper bracket.

Meanwhile, in the lower bracket, it was Team Liquid getting triumph after triumph, even sending home tournament favourites Team Heretics 3-0 in the Lower Bracket Final. 

The Grand Final saw Team Vitality emerge victorious, capping off a triumphant weekend that saw the organisation’s CS2 roster win IEM Katowice. However, the event proved Team Liquid’s prowess and determination heading to the first Masters of the year. The first matches in Bangkok will see Team Vitality face off against T1 and Team Liquid against Edward Gaming.