Teams left out of the VCT partnership: who is staying in VALORANT and who is leaving

Riot Games’ selection of eight partner teams per region for the 2027-2028 VALORANT Champions Tour left roughly as many organizations out as in. In the hours after the news, several of the teams that were not selected have explained what they plan to do next, with most choosing to stay in the game through the new open circuit and one deciding to leave esports altogether.

As Sheep Esports reported, the teams that reached the final stages of the process but were not selected include Cloud9, ENVY, M80, FlyQuest, Shopify Rebellion and LYON in the Americas; Movistar KOI and Barça eSports in EMEA; and Global Esports and S8UL Esports in the Pacific. Nongshim RedForce and KIWOOM DRX also announced they were not selected.

Cloud9 said it remains committed to VALORANT and the VCT. The organization has been holding open tryouts with 10-player lobbies to build a roster for the Open Qualifiers and expects to share more after free agency begins on November 3.

In the Pacific, Nongshim RedForce CEO Evans Oh confirmed that the organization, which won Masters Santiago in 2026 and reached the Champions Shanghai playoffs, will remain in the game and field a team in 2027. KIWOOM DRX also announced on social media that it plans to stay in the VCT ecosystem.

Barça eSports is also expected to continue. As Sheep Esports has reported, the club has built a roster for the 2027 season with Yusuf Emre “Proxh” Tunc, Adolfo “Fit1nho” Gallego, Mohammad “Pa1ze” Khatib, Semyon “purp0” Borchev and Ondřej “MONSTEERR” Petrů, completing the group. The Catalan club will compete officially despite missing out on the partnership.

Not everyone has made a decision. ENVY CEO Mike Rufail confirmed the organization will not be a partner team but clarified that this does not necessarily mean it is leaving competitive VALORANT, promising updates on its future in the game.

M80 founder and CEO Marco Mereu confirmed the news and thanked the players and fans of its six years in the game, without detailing its plans, while FlyQuest announced its rejection in a video and said more news would come soon. Shopify Rebellion’s founder, Jeremy Steeves, also confirmed the decision.

In EMEA, GIANTX said in a statement that it will decide in the coming days whether to keep competing in VALORANT through the qualifiers. Movistar KOI, which Sheep Esports reported was left out, had not detailed its plans yet.

LYON Head of VALORANT Emmanuel Neyra expressed disappointment, warning that the decision would affect the North sub-region of Latin America, which he believes has been disadvantaged by the lack of direct representation across two consecutive cycles.

Eternal Fire, which competed in VCT EMEA in 2026, also said in a statement that it was informed it will not be part of the VCT EMEA partnership program after advancing to the final stage of the process. The team added that it will keep investing in the ecosystem, developing new talent and working to compete at the highest level.

Sheep Esports also reported that FURIA were not selected. “We have not yet made a decision regarding our continued participation,” the team wrote on X. “We will seek to better understand the conditions of the new competitive landscape and responsibly evaluate our next steps.”

Following Riot’s decision, several teams have already announced their departure from the VALORANT scene. Thug, co-founder of S8UL Esports, stated in an Instagram Story that his organisation’s absence from the VCT Pacific partnership programme “also confirms our exit from Valo esports.”

RIDDLE has echoed that sentiment, having also been vying for a spot in VCT Pacific. The organization’s founder, Vodka, announced during a livestream that its VALORANT division would be shutting down. In the EMEA region, FOKUS posted a video announcing the closure of its VALORANT division.

But the biggest announcement came from Global Esports. Founder and CEO Rushindra Sinha announced that the organization will shut down its competitive operations and release its entire roster, weeks after winning its first VCT trophy at Pacific Stage 2.

Sinha said Global Esports had told Riot Games that 2026 would most likely be its last year in esports, and that the new partnership terms made it difficult to keep the roster together. The organization will now focus on GE Studios, an AI-focused venture.

For the teams that stay, the road starts in November with the Open Qualifiers. In the new format, each regional Kickoff, which runs from January 14 to February 7, will have 12 teams, eight of them partners and four coming through the qualifiers. Results at the Cups, which replace the Stages, decide who goes to Masters and Champions.