VALORANT — VCT Stage 2: Cloud9 and SEN dominate, Paper Rex secures top spot in playoffs and Wolves on the edge

While the VCT EMEA and Americas are only in their second week of competition, the two Asian leagues have already concluded their third week and some teams have already secured their spots in the playoffs. As expected, Brazilian teams are still struggling in the Americas region. 2GAME Esports, FURIA and MIBR are all on 0–2, just below LOUD on 1–1.

Despite the absence of Nathan "leaf" Orf, G2 Esports picked up a win to kick off Week 2 of VCT Americas, defeating 2GAME 13-8 on Ascent and 13-5 on Haven. Already qualified for VALORANT Champions Paris, G2 is still playing the stage seriously and now sits at 1-1 in Group Alpha of Stage 2. At the top of this group, Cloud9 and Sentinels are both at 2-0, having defeated Evil Geniuses and FURIA, respectively. FURIA couldn’t even take a round off SEN on Icebox, the second map of the series, in what was a completely one-sided match.

All matches this week in the Los Angeles arena ended in 2-0 results, with 100Thieves taking sole control of Group Omega, ahead of four teams at 1-1 and MIBR at 0-2. With a dominant win over KRU, Matthew “Nadeshot” Haag’s organization takes a strong step toward qualifying for the VCT Americas playoffs, knowing they'll face the bottom team of their group in Week 3.

Meanwhile, VCT China already knows part of the teams qualified for the playoffs as well as the first teams eliminated. In Group Alpha, Bilibili Gaming secured a 2-0 win over Titan Esports Club, clinching a playoff spot, while TEC is now out of the running. BLG also faced Trace Esports this week, a match that ended in a win for Trace, who also secured their ticket to the playoffs. Current world champions EDward Gaming stand at 2-1, just ahead of TYLOO and JDGaming. The trio will battle it out in the coming days for the two remaining spots.

In the other group, XLG, FunPlus Phoenix, and All Gamers have already secured playoff qualification, leaving only one spot up for grabs. That last spot will be contested between Dragon Ranger Gaming and Wolves, the third-place team from Masters Toronto. These two teams faced off to close out Week 3 on Sunday, July 27, with Pong "SiuFatBB" Ka-hei and his teammates picking up their first win of Stage 2. Behind them, only Nova Esports is officially out of playoff contention after suffering three losses in three matches.

In the VCT Pacific, only Group Omega has begun to take shape, while everything is still to play for in Group Alpha. In Omega, Paper Rex is guaranteed to finish first and will skip the opening playoff round. Below the Singaporean organization, both T1 and Talon have secured their playoff spots, although Talon did lose this week to DetonatioN FocusMe. The other Japanese team in the group, Zeta Division, fell 2-0 to T1 and is now eliminated from playoff contention.

In Group Alpha, nothing is settled yet, with all teams sitting at either 2-1 or 1-2 at the end of Week 3 of Stage 2. Gen.G, DRX, and RRQ currently share the lead, after defeating Global Esports, Team Secret, and Nongshim RedForce, respectively. After next week, we should finally see the first team qualify from this group, as RRQ and DRX are set to play each other, leaving one of them with a score of 3–1.