VALORANT Ascension League EMEA 2023: Format, schedule, preview, and more

With the Challenger Leagues having wrapped in EMEA, the teams are set for the VCT 2023 - Challengers Ascension: EMEA tournament. A total of 79 teams across 9 leagues participating during the regular season has been narrowed down to only 10, one of which will be playing in VCT EMEA next year. This guide will give you all the information you need to know before the start of the tournament, including an overview of the format, venue, schedule and a preview of the teams.

VALORANT ASCENSION LEAGUE EMEA 2023: Bracket, format, teams

As there are 9 Challengers Leagues, a final tournament with only the victors of each league would be less than preferable, both for the purpose of creating a healthy tournament structure and the goal of giving more teams per league a chance. Therefore, Riot decided to create a play-ins tournament including all second-placed teams, which was settled before the Ascension tournament. Only one team from the play-ins progressed to the main tournament and that team is FOKUS, the second placed team from Challengers League: Northern Europe. FOKUS got the better of Turkish favourites S2G Esports in the finals and will hope to not have shown too many strats ahead of the main Ascension tournament.

The 9 Challengers League winners and play-ins winner FOKUS are randomly seeded into two groups of 5. Each team will play a best-of-3 against all other teams in a Round Robin format. The two top-placed teams from each group will advance into a double-elimination bracket, in which the Lower Final and Grand Final are best-of-5, to decide who wins the EMEA Ascension tournament and who will play in VCT EMEA in the coming 2 years.

As opposed to both the Pacific and Americas Ascension tournament, the group stage games for the EMEA Ascension tournament will be played online, with only the Playoffs being played on LAN. However, this does mean the players will be able to play in the Coliseum, the official venue of VCT EMEA.

Group A

• Acend
• Dsyre
• CGN Esports
• Digital Athletics
• SAW

Group B

• Team Falcons
• Apeks
• Case Esports
• Gentle Mates
• FOKUS

VALORANT ASCENSION LEAGUE EMEA Schedule

The EMEA Ascension tournament will kick off on June 30, with the group stage lasting until July 4. The final 4 teams will then have plenty of time to both travel and prepare for the bracket stage, which will start on July 13 with the winner being crowned on July 16.

June 30

• Acend vs. Digital Athletics | 11 a.m. EST | 5 p.m. CEST | 12 a.m. JST
• Apeks vs. Case Esports | 11 a.m. EST | 5 p.m. CEST | 12 a.m. JST
• DSYRE vs. CGN Esports | 2 p.m. EST | 8 p.m. CEST | 3 a.m. JST
• Team Falcons vs. Gentle Mates | 2 p.m. EST | 8 p.m. CEST | 3 a.m. JST

July 1

• Acend vs. CGN Esports | 11 a.m. EST | 5 p.m. CEST | 12 a.m. JST
• Case Esports vs. Gentle Mates | 11 a.m. EST | 5 p.m. CEST | 12 a.m. JST
• Digital Athletics vs. SAW | 2 p.m. EST | 8 p.m. CEST | 3 a.m. JST
• Apeks vs. FOKUS | 2 p.m. EST | 8 p.m. CEST | 3 a.m. JST

July 2

• CGN Esports vs. SAW | 11 a.m. EST | 5 p.m. CEST | 12 a.m. JST
• Gentle Mates vs. FOKUS | 11 a.m. EST | 5 p.m. CEST | 12 a.m. JST
• Acend vs. DSYRE | 2 p.m. EST | 8 p.m. CEST | 3 a.m. JST
• Team Falcons vs. Case Esports | 2 p.m. EST | 8 p.m. CEST | 3 a.m. JST

July 3

• DSYRE vs. SAW | 11 a.m. EST | 5 p.m. CEST | 12 a.m. JST
• Team Falcons vs. FOKUS | 11 a.m. EST | 5 p.m. CEST | 12 a.m. JST
• CGN Esports vs. Digital Athletics | 2 p.m. EST | 8 p.m. CEST | 3 a.m. JST
• Apeks vs. Gentle Mates | 2 p.m. EST | 8 p.m. CEST | 3 a.m. JST

July 4

• DSYRE vs. Digital Athletics | 11 a.m. EST | 5 p.m. CEST | 12 a.m. JST
• Team Falcons vs. Apeks | 11 a.m. EST | 5 p.m. CEST | 12 a.m. JST
• Acend vs. SAW | 2 p.m. EST | 8 p.m. CEST | 3 a.m. JST
• Case Esports vs. FOKUS | 2 p.m. EST | 8 p.m. CEST | 3 a.m. JST

July 13 (Semi-finals)

• TBD vs. TBD | 11 a.m. EST | 5 p.m. CEST | 12 a.m. JST
• TBD vs. TBD | 2 p.m. EST | 8 p.m. CEST | 3 a.m. JST

July 14 (Upper Final and Lower Semi-final)

• TBD vs. TBD | 11 a.m. EST | 5 p.m. CEST | 12 a.m. JST
• TBD vs. TBD | 2 p.m. EST | 8 p.m. CEST | 3 a.m. JST

July 15 (Lower Final)

• TBD vs. TBD | 11 a.m. EST | 5 p.m. CEST | 12 a.m. JST

July 16 (Grand Final)

• TBD vs. TBD | 11 a.m. EST | 5 p.m. CEST | 12 a.m. JST

VALORANT ASCENSION LEAGUE EMEA Preview

In almost all cases, the qualified teams have shown to be the best of their region for quite some time, which should deliver some stellar matchups when the tournament gets underway. However, there are still some hefty favourites to take home the title and subsequent promotion to the main league.

Apeks is definitely one of them. The Northern European representatives have dominated their Challengers League with absolute ease in the past few months, even though proven top teams, like FOKUS, who have qualified through play-ins, were playing in the same competition. The quality of ex-Fnatic players James "Mistic" Orfila, Enzo "Enzo" Mestari and Martin "MAGNUM" Penkov is still very visible, that paired with the talent of entry Georgio "Keiko" Sanassy and the experience of Tobias "ShadoW" Flodström, it should come to no surprise that they are the heavy favorites to take home the Ascension crown.

Another favourite with a lot of proven talent on the roster is Acend. The organization itself were previously crowned Champions of 2021. Even though none of the talent that was on the roster back then is still playing with the team now, they still have a strong group of players. With the likes of Ondřej "MONSTEERR" Petrů and Kamil "baddyG" Graniczka, they should be able to challenge for the trophy.

The French new-born giant, Gentle Mates, not only has a fanbase that can rival the likes of Karmine Corp and KOI, they also have the quality to be extremely competitive in the Ascension tournament. Nathan "nataNk" Bocqueho, who previously played for Team Vitality, already came very close to winning the EMEA Tier 2 circuit last year, only losing out to FUT Esports in a close final. Will he get redemption this year around?

Digital Athletics, Case Esports and CGN Esports are among the outsiders for EMEA Ascension. The Turkish region has some incredible depth, but the question is whether that will translate into them having the top team in all of EMEA as well. Case Esports and CGN Esports will most likely have lower expectations, but still have a good chance of making it out of groups.

At the start of the year, two new Challengers Leagues were announced; Challengers League Italy and Portugal. Both leagues will also send a representative to EMEA Ascension. However, expectations shouldn’t be too high for SAW and DSYRE, as these teams will have all odds against them facing the best Tier 2 teams of Europe. The same can be said for MENA’s representative Team Falcons, as the region did not manage to impress in previous editions of the EMEA Tier 2 competition. However, since the competition is only coming closer, all three teams could still spring a surprise by surviving the group stage.

If you want to learn more about the VCT EMEA Ascension tournament and possibly place your votes on the teams that you think will pick up the wins, don’t forget to check out both the event page and the VCT 2023 Hub for more information about the season.