Valorant Champions Tour NA Stage 1 dates announced

The schedule for Stage 1 of the Valorant Champions Tour has been announced for North America, putting every team in the region on notice for the first full year of Riot’s inaugural esport circuit.

Partnering with proven First Strike operators, Nerd Street Gamers (NSG), as official producers for Stage 1, the upcoming online Challengers Weekends through to the completion of the Masters stage will officially start the climb to December’s Valorant Champions.

Every week in the opening month ends with alternating opened and closed qualifiers in the Challengers Weekend series that will systematically fill up the Masters stage contestants.

For more information on the overall structure of the Valorant Champions Tour, we’ve got a complete guide filled with breakdowns of how many teams will be able to go through in each stage.

Valorant Champions Tour Stage 1 dates and schedule

Riot has announced when NA’s best can start climbing the ladder at the tail end of January through a mix of open and closed qualifiers.

• Challengers Weekend 1
  • Open Qualifiers: January 27 – 31
  • Closed Qualifiers: February 4 – 7
• Challengers Weekend 2
  • Open Qualifiers: February 10 – 14
  • Closed Qualifiers: February 18 – 21
• Challengers Weekend 3
  • Open Qualifiers: February 24 – 28
  • Closed Qualifiers: March 4 – 7
• Masters Stage 1
  • Mar 13 – Mar 14
  • March 19 – 21

There are a total of three Challengers Weekend that will lead into Spring’s Masters Stage. Starting on January 27, eight teams who’ve proven their worth in the open qualifiers.

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Then the best eight teams of them all will make it into the Challenger Final, to play for “prizing and qualification slots into the next Masters event.”

Valorant Challengers Open Qualifier format

For a lot of teams, the greatest challenge will be navigating the online tournaments as we can expect the occasional hiccups across different weekends. NSG has been one of the more dynamic tournament operators throughout First Strike, so hopefully it goes without a hitch.

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128 teams will battle for supremacy in the first Open Qualifier. The top eight teams will move on to the first closed qualifier on February 4th-7th. After that, the top four teams from the first Challengers Closed Qualifier will move on to the second Challengers Closed Qualifiers to fight for a spot in the Champions Tour.

For the Open Qualifiers, there’s going to be a single elimination bracket, with every match taking place in a Best of Three format all the way through. There will be a chance for side selection and map bans throughout fixtures.

To stay locked with every stage as it happens, keep up with Dexerto’s Valorant Champions Tour coverage and our @ValorantUpdates account.