China joins the Americas, EMEA, and Pacific leagues that began in 2023 as the fourth VCT regional league.
The partner teams’ VALORANT Champions Tour China campaign will begin in February 2024 with the VCT 2024: China KICK-OFF tournament. The tournament’s top two teams will qualify for the VCT Madrid Masters, which will be held in March 2024 as the year’s first international tournament.
The 2024 VALORANT Champions Tour China season will include eleven teams in total. Along with the ten partner teams, one team will qualify for the league through the VALORANT China Ascension 2023 tournament, which begins on December 23rd.
The following are the ten VCT China partner teams that will compete in 2024:
- All Gamers
- BilBili Gaming
- EDward Gaming
- Titan Esports Club
- TYLOO
- Nova Esports
- JD Gaming
- Trace Esports
- Wolves Esports
- FunPlus Phoenix
VALORANT officially premiered in China in July 2023, three years after the game’s global launch, however many people played it before then. Tencent, the Chinese video game conglomerate that also owns VALORANT producer Riot Games, distributes the game in China.
Riot said in August that China would have its own VCT league. In anticipation of the launch, Chinese esports organization FunPlus Phoenix (FPX) rebranded its VALORANT roster ZHUQUE to the FPX name in January.
VALORANT is swiftly becoming a top FPS esports title in the country, following the demise of the popular indigenous hero shooter Overwatch 2 in China.
While no more information about VCT partner teams in China has been released, VCT partner teams in other regional leagues receive permanent spots as well as income sharing from the league.
Aside from the new VCT league, the second VCT Masters event of the 2018 competitive season will be held in Shanghai.
The largest commercial esports market is China. According to a government-affiliated report from August 2023, the country’s domestic esports business produced revenues of 75.99 billion yuan (£8.31 billion, $10.6 billion) in the first half of the year — but this likely includes game revenue.
