Champions Shanghai 2026: eight of the 16 teams got in on points

The reigning world champions of Valorant will defend their title without having reached the final of their own league this summer. NRG are one of eight teams that enter Champions Shanghai through Championship Points, the season-long count kept by Riot Games, the publisher of the game. The other eight are the finalists of the four Stage 2 playoffs. Dot Esports published the complete list of the 16 teams and the four groups on Thursday, September 10, 2026, and Riot's own guide to the event followed on Friday, September 11.

Champions is the world championship that closes the season of the Valorant Champions Tour, known as the VCT. This year it is played in Shanghai from September 24 to October 18. Sheep Esports, which listed the qualified teams on September 5, noted that China hosts the event for the first time.

Dot Esports, September 10, 2026, and Riot Games' guides to Masters Santiago and Masters London.

Two doors into the world championship

The VCT is built on four international leagues: Americas, EMEA, which covers Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Pacific and China. Each has twelve teams, 48 in all, according to the League Handbook Riot publishes for the 2026 season. Each league sends four teams to Champions, and the handbook gives the rule in one line: the top two teams of the Stage 2 playoffs qualify, and so do the top two teams in Championship Points.

Stage 2 is the last league phase of the year, played from June to September. The handbook describes it in three steps. Every league team plays five matches in a group stage. The top two of each group go straight to the playoffs, and the bottom four of each group are sent to Play-Ins, a double-elimination round they share with the top four teams of Challengers, the circuit below the leagues. The four survivors of the Play-Ins join the four teams already qualified in the playoffs. The two teams that reach the final of those playoffs have their place in Shanghai, whatever they did earlier in the year.

The second door is for the teams that fell short of that final. Sheep Esports sums up the mechanism: the two highest-ranked teams in points that did not qualify through Stage 2 take the remaining places of each league.

Where Championship Points come from

Points are collected from the first tournament of the season. For Kickoff, the opening event of each league in January and February, the handbook says points are awarded by placement, to reward early-season consistency. Stage 1, from March to May, pays by the match. "Over five weeks, each team plays five matches and earns Championship Points for every win," the handbook reads. More points are then distributed in the Stage 1 playoffs, according to how far a team goes.

The two international events of the year count as well. Riot's guides to Masters Santiago, played in February and March, and to Masters London, played in June, both said that wins there earned Championship Points toward Champions Shanghai. The handbook calls the first a major opportunity to earn points and the second a key milestone in the race.

None of these texts prints a scale. The handbook gives no value for a Kickoff placement, a Stage 1 win or a Masters win, and neither Dot Esports nor Sheep Esports publishes point totals with their lists of qualified teams. What the published lists show is the result of the count: which two teams, in each league, stood highest among those that were not Stage 2 finalists.

The sixteen teams and how each got in

Dot Esports numbers the four teams of each league from one to four: the Stage 2 winner first, the runner-up second, then the two teams that qualified on points.

The points column holds the last two world champions. NRG won Champions in 2025 and EDward Gaming in 2024, Sheep Esports recalls; the 2023 title went to Evil Geniuses, who are not in the field. Dot Esports lists NRG as the third team of the Americas and EDward Gaming as the third team of China. The Stage 2 winners' column, for its part, includes a team with a recent trophy from outside the league: Dot Esports describes 100 Thieves as recent winners at the Esports World Cup 2026.

Points rewarded the teams of the Masters

Set beside the fields of the two Masters of 2026, as Riot published them in February and May, the two columns look very different.

All eight teams that qualified on points played at least one of the two Masters. Five of them played both: NRG and G2 Esports for the Americas, Paper Rex for the Pacific, EDward Gaming and XLG Esports for China. Those are the only five teams that made both trips this year. FUT Esports and Team Vitality were in London, and T1 were in Santiago.

The Stage 2 finalists are another group. Five of the eight, 100 Thieves, LOUD, Karmine Corp, TYLOO and JD Gaming, did not play a Masters in 2026. Team Liquid and Nongshim RedForce were in Santiago, at the start of the season, and Global Esports were in London. For most of them the summer playoffs were the one route left, and the rule that sends both finalists to Shanghai is what gives a late run its value.

The comparison also shows who is missing. The two Masters gathered 19 different teams over the year. Eleven of them are going to Shanghai. The eight that are not are FURIA and Leviatán from the Americas, BBL Esports, Gentle Mates and Team Heretics from EMEA, FULL SENSE from the Pacific, and All Gamers and Dragon Ranger Gaming from China.

Four groups, one team from each league

The 16 teams are split into four groups of four, and Riot's guide states the principle of the draw: each group holds one team from each region.

The groups are balanced by rank as well as by region. Each one contains one Stage 2 winner, one Stage 2 runner-up and two teams that came through on points, each from a different league. The title holders NRG are in Group D with Karmine Corp, Nongshim RedForce and XLG Esports. Group C opens with TYLOO, the Stage 2 winners of the China league, against G2 Esports, the one opening match Dot Esports names.

The group stage is played in what Sheep Esports calls a GSL-style double-elimination format, in best-of-three series, a series being won by the first team to take two maps. Riot's guide puts the rule in five words. "Lose two and you're out," it says of the groups. A second defeat ends a team's tournament. Two teams advance from each group and two go home.

From September 24 to the final of October 18

Eight teams reach the playoffs, which are also played with double elimination: a team that loses once drops into a lower bracket and keeps playing, and a second defeat ends its tournament. Playoff series are best-of-three until the last days. Dot Esports and Sheep Esports both give the grand final as a best-of-five, won by the first team to take three maps, and Dot Esports adds that the lower bracket final is played over the same distance.

Dot Esports names two venues in Shanghai for the event, the Jing'an Sports Center and the Mercedes-Benz Arena. The same report puts the prize pool at US$2,250,000, of which US$1,000,000 goes to the champion along with the trophy.

One individual award is decided over the whole tournament. Riot's guide says the most valuable player is chosen for impact, consistency and performance when it mattered most, by a vote of broadcast talent, co-streamers, who are creators allowed to show the matches on their own channels, and media. The winner is named after the grand final.

The last Champions filled this way

The two doors used this year will not be the same next season. Sheep Esports describes Champions Shanghai as the last edition played under the current format before the circuit opens up in 2027. Riot announced that redesign on April 8: league play is replaced by VCT Cups, two per territory each year, and Open Qualifiers lead into the circuit. Dot Esports reports that those Open Qualifiers begin in November 2026, the month after the final in Shanghai.

In June, Riot added that points and progress in the 2027 system stay with a team as long as at least three of its five players remain. It did not say then how Championship Points would be awarded in the new calendar. For the 16 teams of this field, the count of 2026 has done its work: it stops mattering on September 24, when the first series of the group stage begins in Shanghai.

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