Japan - Stage 1 - Challengers Week 1 - Open Qualifier Recap

Instead of having both open qualifiers consecutively and transitioning to the main event, the Challenger events are designed to feature a week of open qualifiers, followed by a week of Main Event matches. The VCT 2022 - Japan - Stage 1 - Challengers Week 1 - Open Qualifier consisted of 64 teams divided into 8 groups with only the winning team from the group advancing to the Main Event. Since the event has concluded, the eight participants in VCT 2022 - Japan - Stage 1 - Challengers Week 1 have been decided. Here is a brief recap of how each team managed to secure a spot at the Main Event.

Crazy Raccoon:

Given their glorious past, Crazy Raccoon qualifying came as no surprise. Throughout 2021, they had countless tournament wins including VALORANT TechnoBlood Climber Summit, VCT 2021 - Stage 1 - Japan Masters and VCT 2021 - Stage 2 - Japan - Challengers Finals while also placing 2nd in VCT 2021 - Stage 3 - Japan - Challengers Playoffs. Despite qualifying for all the international LAN events, their success was quite limited. Following the conclusion of VCT 2021 - VALORANT Champions 2021, the organization announced that they will be releasing all their remaining players from their VALORANT roster except for Yusuke "neth" Matsuda and only a few weeks ago, the team announced their revamped roster introducing Souta "popogachi" Morita, Byeon "Munchkin" Sang-beom, Ibuki "Meiy" Seki, and Moon "Astell" Ji-won.

Although Insomnia was able to force the decider map in the Semi Finals against them, they couldn’t maintain their performance in the final map and lost 2-1 allowing Crazy Raccoon to make the finals, where they had no difficulty defeating Jadeite on successive maps with 13-5, and 13-7 scores respectively. Even though the players on the roster are different, Crazy Raccoon is still on the forefront of the Japanese Valorant scene.

ZETA Division:

ZETA DIVISION has, too, been a dominant force in the Japanese region with their only losses over their last year being in Grand Final matchups against Crazy Raccoon and the poor performance at Vanguard Championship Series - Week 65. Even though they were qualified to compete in VCT 2021 - APAC Last Chance Qualifier, the organization announced that they would be giving up their spot to another team to focus on restructuring their Valorant roster after the loss at Masters Berlin. In December, the organization announced the addition of Yuma "Dep" Hisamoto, Shota "SugarZ3ro" Watanabe and Tenta "ten" Asai replacing Oshiro "Reita" Ryu, who was transferred to REJECT on a 1-year loan deal while Ryo "barce" Takebayashi and Miyamoto "makiba7" Akastuki transitioned to streaming. Then, in January, Shogo "takej" Takemori departed the team for REJECT.

The revamped roster at Zeta Division had no difficulties acclimating themselves under the new banner and managed to execute clean sweep in all of their 3 matchups in the tournament. Better yet, they didn’t let the opposing team take more than seven rounds on a map, with finalists Reignite only managing to take a total of seven maps and losing 13-5 and 13-2 to ZETA Division. The unstoppable Japanese team not only qualified for the Main Event, but also instilled fear in the other qualifying teams that they were a force to be reckoned.

NORTHEPTION:

The third best team in the region also had little difficulty making it out of the open qualifiers. Despite the fact that their only international event in VCT 2021 was VCT 2021 - APAC Last Chance Qualifier, they managed to place 2nd, only one loss away from making VCT 2021 - VALORANT Champions 2021. NORTHEPTION looks to continue their success in 2022 as demonstrated by their performance in the tournament. Similar to Zeta Division, they managed to qualify without dropping any maps. However, FAV gaming were able to reach a double digit score on both maps, Bind and Ascent, in the finals.

FENNEL:

Another participant at VCT 2021 - APAC Last Chance Qualifier and a reputable team in the Japanese region, FENNEL also had a phenomenal run in the tournament. In the final’s matchup of Group B, Storks Phalanx, was able to force overtime in the second map against them. Nonetheless, they were unable to capitalize on this opportunity, and FENNEL retained its flawless streak in the tournament and qualified for the Main Event.

REJECT:

It can be said that REJECT was the only team that literally lived up to its name. REJECT was able to consistently reject all of their opponents’ hopes of qualifying for the Main Event rather easily. With Shogo "takej" Takemori and Oshiro "Reita" Ryu, former members of ZETA DIVISION joining the roster, this performance was more enthralling than it was shocking. The organization did not have the best luck in VCT 2021, but a revamped roster has rekindled their hopes of reigning the Japanese scene once again.

CNCI BLUE BEES:

BLUE BEES, a team that had disappeared from the scene for the entirety of Stage 2 VCT 2021, looks to make a comeback with the new season. In this tournament, they stood unphased by any of the competition. Dominating each matchup was a walk in the park of them as even the finalists SCARZ couldn’t take more than a collective of 15 rounds over two maps and were forced to surrender their chances at a Main Event spot to CNCI BLUE BEES.

IGZIST:

This relatively new organization shocked the world when they announced their entry into the Valorant scene by signing Kim "Lakia" Jong-min, who was one of the best South Korean players in 2021 with him playing mainly for NUTURN and then joining Vision Strikers (now DRX VS) after VCT Stage 2 Masters Reykjavik. IGZIST had no difficulty finding their momentum and eliminating all of the obstacles from their path of qualifying for the Main Event. The addition of Lakia to the team was extremely worth especially considering his 1.30 rating and 268 ACS in the final against DetonatioN FocusMe.

Sengoku Gaming:

Apart from Crazy Raccoon, Sengoku Gaming were the only team to lose a map in the qualifiers. The last tournament they played was VCT 2021 - Stage 2 - Japan - Challengers 2 - Open Qualifier in April 2021, almost a year ago which explained why they were still adjusting to competing on such a high level. Their momentary setback against Hexad resolved when they took the decider map, Icebox, 13-2 and qualified for the Main Event. A 13-2 against them on Ascent can potentially signal their weakness on the map and can make future opponents take this factor into consideration while deciding on their map picks.

In VCT 2022 - Japan - Stage 1 - Challengers Week 1, the top four teams will be guaranteed a position in the playoffs, while the remaining four will be given a second chance in Week 2 as direct invitations where they will be joined by four teams from VCT 2022 - Japan - Stage 1 - Challengers Week 2 - Open Qualifier to determine the remaining playoff positions.