VALORANT - Project Blender: Five VCT EMEA teams announced for the third phase

Announced as an experimental tournament built for the entire VALORANT EMEA ecosystem, Project Blender is structured into four phases played between 11 October and 14 December, with a total prize pool of 75 000€, funded in part by a system of bounties. Phase 3, scheduled to be played online from 3 to 7 December, will serve as a Swiss Stage featuring 32 teams, bringing together VCT EMEA partner organisations, Ascension EMEA representatives, Game Changers EMEA rosters and teams qualified from Phase 2, before transitioning to Phase 4 on LAN in Paris.

Project Blender 2025 is positioned as a European tournament series jointly organised by Riot Games and GOZULTING, reinforcing the circuit’s official status by adding an offseason competition aimed at teams in the midst of rebuilding who are looking to gain experience before the start of the VCT season. On the invited side, Blender already features five prominent names from VCT EMEA like Team Vitality. They are joined by several representatives from other tiers of the ecosystem from the Game Changers scene, and from Ascension EMEA. Beside the tournaments invitation, winners of the Blender Spotlight tournament are also invited. In total, ten slots are reserved for VCT teams , but only five have been confirmed so far, with the remaining VCT invitations, along with the two Wildcard spots, yet to be announced.

Phase 2 of Project Blender, played in early November, brought together 64 teams in a group stage using a round-robin format, mixing Phase 1 qualifiers with line-ups coming from circuits such as Premier, Game Changers, VRC and the various Challengers leagues. Top two teams from each group earned a spot in Phase 3, for a total of sixteen qualified rosters set to face the invited teams in the Swiss Stage.

With a Swiss format where 16 of the 32 teams will secure their place in Phase 4, played in a single-elimination bracket, every match will carry significant weight. The constraints of the “Blender Draft”, which prevents teams from reusing the same agents from one map to the next, combined with the bounty system that rewards upsets, are expected to create a particularly volatile environment between VCT favourites and Phase 2 challengers. As December 3rd approaches, one thing is clear: the Phase 3 field is almost complete, and the slightest mistake from the headline organisations could turn into a major opportunity for the Phase 2 qualifiers.