VCT 2027 Partner Teams: A World Champion Just Lost Its Seat

Riot named the VCT 2027 partner teams today. Eight in the Americas, eight in EMEA, eight in Pacific, eight in China. That is 32 slots, down from 48 this year.

Evil Geniuses is not on the list. Neither is FunPlus Phoenix.

Both have won a global VALORANT title. EG took Champions in 2023. FPX won Masters Copenhagen in 2022. Both are gone, and that says more about how Riot picked than the announcement does.

All 32 VCT 2027 partner teams

• Americas: 100 Thieves, G2 Esports, KRÜ Esports, Leviatán, LOUD, MIBR, NRG, Sentinels
• EMEA: BBL Esports, Fnatic, FUT Esports, Gentle Mates, Karmine Corp, Team Heretics, Team Liquid, Team Vitality
• Pacific: Crazy Raccoon, FULL SENSE, GAM Esports, Gen.G, Paper Rex, Rex Regum Qeon, T1, ZETA DIVISION
• China: All Gamers, Bilibili Gaming, EDward Gaming, JD Gaming, Trace Esports, TYLOO, Weibo Gaming, Xi Lai Gaming

Who got cut

Each region ran twelve teams in 2026. Each gets eight partners in 2027. Here is the subtraction.

• Americas: Cloud9, Evil Geniuses and FURIA lose partner status. ENVY also exits, but came up through Ascension this year rather than holding a slot.
• EMEA: GIANTX, KOI and Natus Vincere lose partner status. PCIFIC Esports and ULF Esports came in through Ascension and do not go on.
• Pacific: the worst hit. DRX, DetonatioN FocusMe, Global Esports, Team Secret and Nongshim RedForce are all gone, plus SLT.
• China: FunPlus Phoenix, Nova Esports, Titan Esports Club, Wolves Esports and Dragon Ranger Gaming are out.

DRX is the name that stings

DRX reached the Champions semi-finals in 2022. For years they were the most reliable Korean side abroad outside T1, and they made every Champions from 2021 to 2024.

Now they have no partner slot and no guaranteed Kickoff seat. Just the open qualifier road, like everyone else.

Riot told you this would happen

Five criteria were published. Only one of them is winning.

• Commitment to grow the VALORANT community
• Community resonance across fandom and content
• Business sustainability and responsible operations
• Operational excellence and established infrastructure
• Competitive success and performance development

Riot goes further in the post. It says that results mattered, but that it put “particular emphasis on organizations that could help us build fandom and community resonance for years to come”.

Read the list again with that line in mind. Gentle Mates have won nothing close to a title, and they are in. Evil Geniuses have a Champions trophy, and they are not.

More than 100 teams applied. Finalists sat interviews with global and regional leads. The ones who build audiences beat the ones who built trophy cabinets.

Four teams are new

Only four of the 32 were outside a VCT league this season.

• Crazy Raccoon (Pacific), the Japanese org with one of the biggest content followings in the region
• GAM Esports (Pacific), Vietnam’s biggest esports brand, built on League of Legends
• Weibo Gaming (China)
• FUT Esports (EMEA), back after a season out of the league

Notice which region is missing there.

The Americas took nobody new. Eight of its twelve teams stayed, four left, and no outside org came in. For a round sold on community and fresh chances, the richest region in the sport produced zero new blood.

What a partner slot actually buys in 2027

Less than it used to. This is the part most coverage will skip.

Deals run on two-year renewable cycles. Partners get yearly money, a cut of in-game goods like Team and Season Capsules and the Championship bundle, and bonuses tied to how much they grow the sport.

What they no longer get is a season.

Partners go straight into VCT Kickoff. That is the whole competitive guarantee. After Kickoff they play alongside teams out of Open Qualifiers, and results are the only way into Cups, Masters and Champions. Riot’s own words: partners will “for the first time face an onslaught of new challengers throughout the season”.

So a slot in the VCT 2027 partner teams is a cheque, a cosmetics share and one event. The rest is earned.

What this means for the Americas Kickoff Qualifiers

Here is the real consequence, and it lands next month.

We covered the North America Kickoff Qualifiers on October 16. We flagged then that Riot’s invite rule for the 16-team Qualifier Playoffs covers “VCT Americas teams during 2026 that aren’t extended as Partner teams”. Nobody knew who that meant.

Now we do. Cloud9, Evil Geniuses and FURIA.

Those three are the expected invitees. They join a Swiss bracket that also holds open qualifier teams and Challengers rosters. A Champions-winning org playing a best-of-one against a stack that signed up online three weeks ago is now a real November fixture.

The Swiss stage runs November 20 to 22. The double-elimination bracket follows from December 1 to 6.

The 2027 calendar

Riot published the season map alongside the list.

• Kickoff, January 14 to February 7: São Paulo, Berlin, Bangkok, Hangzhou
• Masters, February 20 to March 3: Seoul
• Cup, April 29 to May 23: Mexico City, Warsaw, Manila, Wuhan
• Masters, June 5 to 20: València
• Cup, August 5 to 29: Rio de Janeiro, Istanbul, Tokyo, Shanghai
• Champions and Game Changers Championship, September 16 to October 10: Austin

Our VCT 2027 global tour breakdown covers the format behind those dates.

Is this a healthier system?

Riot argues that stability plus open competition makes a better sport. On paper it holds. Partners can invest knowing they have two years. Everyone else can play their way in.

The counterweight is what happens to DRX or Evil Geniuses now. They keep rosters, staff and buildings made for a league with no seat for them. The only road back runs through brackets built for teams with far lower costs. Some will not last the year.

That is the trade. Fewer safe seats, more ways in, and no shelter for the orgs that built the sport but stopped being the ones people watch.

The full post is on the official VALORANT Esports site. We covered LOUD’s second Champions title last weekend, and the rest of the off-season sits in our VALORANT section.