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Ready to takeoff: VCT Pacific Ascension Playoffs Preview
After the intense group stage of VCT Pacific Ascension, only six teams remain and will play the playoffs starting tomorrow. The VCT Pacific Ascension will feature a double-elimination bracket. Only one team will survive the playoffs and qualify for the VCT Pacific 2024. To commemorate the upcoming VCT Pacific Ascension playoffs, Riot Games in collaboration with SORN released a music video.
VCT Pacific Ascension Playoffs Format and Preview:
A total of ten teams qualified for the VCT Pacific Ascension via regional tournaments. The ten teams were divided into groups of two namely Group Alpha and Group Omega. Each group played a single round robin best-of-three round. After all the games were completed, three teams from each group qualified for the playoffs.
With six teams playing a high stakes single-elimination bracket, the top seeds from each group were directly seeded into the Upper Semifinals. The #2 seeds from each group will play the #3 seeds from the opposite group. The six teams that qualified for the playoffs were NAOS, BLEED, Fancy United, SCARZ, BOOM and BONKERS. With the bracket being single-elimination, every single round matters for the teams. The opening round fixtures for VCT Pacific Ascension are as follows:
- SCARZ vs. Fancy United
- BOOM esports vs. Bonkers
NAOS will take on the winners of SCARZ vs. Fancy United. BLEED will face the victor of BOOM vs. Bonkers. The grand finals will be a best-of-five. The grand finals day will also feature a TDM showmatch. Finally, the winner of the tournament, one of these six teams, will ascend to VCT Pacific 2024.
Riot Games also organised a pre-playoffs press conference with the playing teams and Jake Sin. Here follows a Strafe exclusive excerpt from the same:
Q. For Jake Sin, Head of Valorant Esports APAC: Can you elaborate on the process for the team winning the VCT Pacific Ascension. As we know the first ten teams selected had a gruelling application process to get selected, would that apply for the qualified teams? or they get direct promotion?
Jake Sin: “We wanted International teams to have balance between teams we have selected on the merit of having a strong marketing team or a brand or having strong operational capabilities. But we also wanted to have another approach where we select teams based on competitive merit which might be lacking in some of the other areas but basically they are the best, strongest roster in the region. That’s what we are trying to select here. Which team in which region really has what it takes to compete at that level of peak Valorant performance.
So once that team is determined, we’d not put them through another set of test scores or a valuation process; however there are some minimum thresholds you have to meet. I don’t want to dwell into the details but obviously we want to ensure the teams are a good partner to Riot and the other teams, so there are some checklists, However it is not the same as the old application process we had for the international.”
Q. For BLEED: You were the favourites to win VCT Pacific Ascension. First of all, How confident are you in your chances to win the whole thing? Secondly, who do you think would be the biggest threat?
BLEED Legija: “Right now Very confident. But I could be very wrong. I think on paper and with the players we have, we are the best team in the tournament, we just haven’t showed it yet. I will be honest, we were vulnerable and it has to change in the next four days, preparing for the playoffs. We will see how the tournament goes and we also have a little advantage that we can see our opponents play once more before we actually play them. That’s also a lot of time for me to prepare for the playoffs.”
Q. For Bonkers: What do you think were the mistakes made that you'd want to avoid in the playoffs?
Bonkers minimise: “Well I think the main mistake was for the team to play for the first time in person, so there were factors we didn’t consider such as keeping the energy up. When the crowd is cheering, it starts to get in your head and it has been complicating things a lot. But when we stuck to our game plan and played it through we performed well. So we just need to keep our mental stable throughout the game.”
At the same press conference, Jake Sin also confirmed a longer VCT Pacific and Ascension season for 2024. With teams getting more time to recuperate and the scheduling won’t be as hectic. Furthermore, VCT Pacific will be much more exciting and interesting with a longer season.
The VCT Pacific Ascension playoffs kickoff tomorrow at 16:00 GMT + 7. You can follow VCT Pacific Twitter for all the VCT Pacific Ascension updates.
