VCT 2027 Open Qualifiers: Open Teams Can Now Earn $400,000 Just for Reaching Champions

Riot has published the first details of the VCT 2027 Open Qualifiers, and the numbers behind them are already public.

A non-partner team that qualifies for Kickoff or a Cup receives $100,000. Reaching Masters pays $200,000. Reaching Champions pays $400,000. Those payments sit on top of prize money rather than replacing it, and a team running deep across the season can collect up to $1.1 million in support from Riot.

Qualifiers open in November. If you have any ambition of building a team, the preparation starts now.

The Road to Masters

Riot has published a four-stage timeline, and the first two dates sit close together.

Date	Stage
2 November 2026	VCT 2027 Free Agency begins
November 2026	Open Qualifiers start
January 2027	VCT 2027 Kickoff
February 2027	VCT 2027 Masters

Look at the gap between the first two entries. Free Agency opens on 2 November, and Open Qualifiers begin in the same month. Anyone hoping to assemble a roster from newly available players has weeks, not months, to do it.

That timing rewards teams who already have four players locked in and need one more. It punishes anyone planning to build from scratch once the market opens.

Partner Teams Lost Their Safety Net Too

This is the part that gets missed when the announcement is read on its own.

VCT 2027 drops long-form league play entirely. Cups replace the regular season, and the structure becomes tournament-first. Partner teams still get automatic qualification into Kickoff, but they are no longer guaranteed a run through the rest of the year.

Fall short and a partner team drops into Open Playoffs to fight its way back. Get eliminated early there and it re-enters through Open Qualifiers like everyone else.

So the open path is not only a wider door for newcomers. It is the same door partner organisations now walk through when results dry up.

Partner teams keep their own compensation layer, though. That covers a partner stipend for contributing to the growth of Valorant esports, team capsules where sales benefit the team directly, automatic Kickoff qualification, and uncapped rewards tied to capsule and bundle performance.

Twelve Teams Per Kickoff, Four From Open Qualifiers

Kickoff in VCT Americas, EMEA and Pacific each fields 12 teams: eight partner teams and four from the open path. Qualifier teams therefore make up a third of every field.

The format runs triple elimination, and the top three teams from each Kickoff move directly to Masters. A qualifier team can reach the second international event of the year without ever holding a partner slot.

VCT China works differently, with eight partner teams, two visitor teams and two from Open Qualifiers. Riot has not finished detailing how CN’s Kickoff operates under the new system.

Regions may also run more than one Open Qualifier, so missing the first attempt does not end your season.

What the Qualification Payments Actually Mean

Riot’s stated goal is simple enough: when a team earns its way into the VCT, that performance should come with support to keep the team competing.

Anyone who has followed tier-two Valorant knows why that matters. Making a run has always cost money, and rosters have historically dissolved between splits because deep results did not pay for themselves. A guaranteed $100,000 for reaching Kickoff changes the conversation an aspiring roster has with a potential owner.

Game Changers gets its own incentive layer, with a $1,000,000 incentive attached to the Game Changers Championship.

Across the season Riot has more than $7,000,000 in competitive rewards planned, spread across Kickoff, Cups, Masters, Champions and the Game Changers Championship.

All figures are in USD, and Riot notes they remain subject to official rules and programme updates.

What You Need to Do Before November

Registration is not open, so there is nothing to sign up for today. There is, however, plenty to prepare.

Riot’s checklist covers five things:

• Build your roster. In most regions, at least three of your five players must be from that region.
• Sort passports early. Riot linked a dedicated video about valid passports, which tells you how often this catches teams out. Start visa preparation now if you need it.
• Watch your regional channels for registration dates, formats, age restrictions and MMR thresholds.
• Keep your roster together. Open and creator-led teams that retain at least three of five players hold onto their competitive progress across the season.
• Pick a name that is legally yours. Riot has explicitly warned against branding that infringes existing trademarks or copyrights.

The roster continuity rule deserves a second look, especially against that Free Agency date. Swapping three or more players resets what you have built, so the tempting mid-season shuffle now carries a direct competitive cost.

Riot naming creator-led teams as their own category is worth noting too. That formally recognises a route into the ecosystem which barely existed a few years ago.

Every Regional Open Qualifier

Sixteen paths in total, across four territories.

VCT Americas (4):

• North America
• Latin America North
• Latin America South
• Brazil

VCT EMEA (3):

• Europe
• Türkiye
• MENA

VCT Pacific (8):

• South Korea
• Japan
• Thailand
• Indonesia
• Vietnam
• Southeast Asia (Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and the rest of the region)
• South Asia
• Oceania

VCT CN (1):

• China

Pacific carries half the qualifiers on its own, which reflects how fragmented that region’s competitive scene is compared with EMEA or the Americas. A European team competes against the whole continent. A Thai team competes against Thailand.

That is a real difference in difficulty depending on where you live. It also means smaller scenes get a genuine route in, rather than disappearing inside a bracket they would never escape.

What Riot Has Not Said Yet

Every regional listing currently reads as information coming soon.

Still missing: exact qualifier dates within November, formats, MMR thresholds, age limits and the full 2027 calendar beyond Masters. Riot has promised the detail before qualifiers begin.

Should You Actually Try?

The odds have not improved much. Four slots per region, against everyone else in that region, is still a narrow door.

What has changed is what waits on the other side. Previously a deep run bought you attention and a chance at being signed. Now it buys attention, prize money eligibility and a six-figure guaranteed payment, which is a fundamentally different pitch when you are asking an organisation to fund flights, bootcamps and salaries.

Leo Faria, Riot’s Global Head of Valorant Esports, framed the 2027 model around teams earning their place at every step. The payment structure is what makes that more than a slogan.

Where to Read the Announcement

Riot published the qualifier details on the VALORANT Esports site, with regional information links still to come.

More VALORANT coverage lands on our VALORANT news hub.