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VCT LOCK//IN will kickstart the 2023 season of the Valorant Champions Tour. The event will start on February 13 and end on March 4, 2023.
This tournament is set to be the biggest one organized by Riot Games to date. All 10 partnered teams are set to make an appearance in the tournament and will be joined by two Chinese teams invited by the developers.
The teams will be divided into two groups: Alpha and Omega. They will fight it out in a single elimination bracket of best-of-three matches for the first three rounds. The tournament's semi-finals and the Grand Finals will be a best of five.
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The 10 teams from the EMEA League are BBL Esports, Fnatic, FUT Esports, Giants, Karmine Corp, KOI, Natus Vincere, Team Heretics, Team Liquid, and Vitality. Each roster is packed with the best talent from the region, and some of them have played at the top-most levels of earlier VCT editions.
Four of these rosters have players who have proved their mettle more than anyone, performing consistently and notwithstanding what team they are on. Here are the best EMEA teams to look out for in VCT LOCK//IN.
Fnatic, NAVI, and two other teams sure to shine in the upcoming VCT LOCK//IN tournament
1) Fnatic
Fnatic is the UK-based team that entered the VCT in 2021 after signing the SUMN FC squad. Only the figureheads from that original team remain, and for a good reason.
IGL Jake "Boaster" Howlett and Head Coach Jacob "mini" Harris are the two biggest brains in professional Valorant and are behind huge meta-defining Agent compositions and set-plays. Boaster has led Fnatic to the highest levels, but the team always met its bane when it mattered the most in earlier seasons.
The rest of the team consists of Nikita "derke" Sirmitev, Emir "Alfajer" Beder, and the new signings Leo "Leo" Jannesson and Timofey "Chronicle" Khromov. Maks "kamyk" Rychlewski has recently been signed as the squad's sixth man alongside Aleksey "slk" Lynksov as Assistant Coach.
The entire team has only been seen in action at recent show matches in Japan. If these games are any evidence of what lies ahead, Chronicle and Leo were the missing pieces that have now been found. Fnatic is a favorite for this tournament and of the top contenders for the VCT Champions crown this year.
2) Natus Vincere
NAVI was not a name people thought of when considering top contenders from the EMEA region. But that was until they signed the core of the former FunPlus Phoenix squad and one of the most formidable players in the region, Mehmet "cNed" İpek.
The Ukrainian organization is ready to make waves this year, starting with the VCT LOCK//IN tournament. Led by Kyrylo "ANGE1" Karasov, Andrey "Shao" Kiprsky, Pontus "Zyppan" Eek, Dmitry "SUYGETSU" Ilyushin, and cNed will be looking to redeem their Masters Copenhagen glory, but on a much bigger stage this time.
Zyppan excels in opening up sites with his superb entry-fragging potential. cNed is usually the Operator player, so maybe he will be seen on Jett this season.
The rest of the team, consisting of Shao, SUYGETSU, and ANGE1, have played the primary Initiator, Sentinel, and Controller roles to date on their previous teams and are known to be one of the best in their class.
FunPlus Phoenix missed out on their VCT Champions dreams last year, but NAVI will be back with full force to claim what they believe to be theirs.
3) Team Liquid
Team Liquid will play in the VCT without Scream for the first time this season, as he moved to Karmine Corp. However, fans need not be sad as the team has never looked better.
Dom "soulcas" Sulcas and Elias "Jammppi" Olkkonen remain from the old roster. They are joined by ex-Gambit superstars Igor "Redgar" Vlsov and Ayaz "nAts" Akhmetshin, along with Saif "Sayf" Jibraeel from Guild Esports.
Liquid performed averagely at the Red Bull Home Ground 2022 after coming together, but they played without nAts and Redgar. Anyone who has seen these two play together knows the level of impact they have on the servers.
One can safely assume that this roster, in its entirety, will be a much bigger force when they play together for the first their first official game in Sao Paulo.
4) Karmine Corp
Karmine Corp is one of the new kids on the block. But any team with the Benrlitom brothers will be one to look out for. The team consists of Adil "ScreaM" Benrlitom, Nabil "Nivera" Benrlitom, Ryad "Shin" Ensaad, Alexis "Newzera" Humbert, and Alexandre "xms" Forté.
ScreaM will lead the team in their games and play the primary Duelist, given his track record with headshots. Nivera, in his relatively short stint with Team Liquid, made a mark as one of the best Sentinel and Viper players in the region. Moreover, xms had a strong spell with TENSTAR in the last season.
Shin and Newzera are well-known figures in the French leg of the Valorant Regional League and have been retained from the previous season's Karmine Corp squad.
Karmine Corp might not be on too many radars as favorites for the first international event of the season. However, the team made it to the partnership for a reason and will be a top contender from the region in VCT LOCK//IN.
Fnatic, NAVI, and Liquid are all part of the Omega group, implying they will go up against each other in their early days in the tournament. And only one of them will make it to the next round.
That being said, the tournament will be excellent through and through, and it will be a treat for fans to see how their favorite EMEA teams face up against the best talent from the other regions.
