History
In September 2022, Riot announced the 30 teams partnered for the 2023 Champions Tour. Following the inclusion of the 2023 LOCK//IN event, Riot announced the location of 2023 Champions as Los Angeles. To promote the event, on July 31, 2023, Riot released the anthem for the tournament, "Ticking Away". The track features artists Grabbitz and bbno$. In coordination with the track release, Riot hosted events across four LA neighborhoods featuring live music, food and livestreaming tournament matches. Additionally, Riot released a number of videos featuring bbno$ as "The Random". On July 23rd, the sixteen qualified teams were announced by Riot Games. Junta de Andalucía was announced as the Global English Broadcast Partner on August 7th.Venues
Los Angeles andQualified teams
Sixteen teams qualified for the global crowning event of the circuit, with teams either qualifying through their respective league or through Last Chance Qualifiers. The top 3 teams of each league during the playoffs or Masters Tokyo for EMEA immediately qualified for Champions, while the other 7 teams had to battle it out in the Last Chance Qualifiers in their respective regions including China. The following teams qualified for the event:Group stage
The group stage took place from August 6 – 13, 2023. All 16 teams were divided into 4 groups of four teams each playing in a GSL-style double-elimination format. Games were held in a best-of-three series. The top 2 teams in each group qualified for the playoffs.Draw Rules
16 Teams were drawn into 4 groups of 4 teams. Teams from the same region cannot be placed in the same group. If a team is drawn into the same group as another team from their region, they will be placed in the next valid group with the exception of the EMEA LCQ #2 seed, which was Natus Vincere. Matchups were based on the draw pools, with Pool 1 teams facing Pool 4 teams and Pool 2 teams facing Pool 3 teams in each group. These pools were determined by the performance of teams at Masters Tokyo and the Last Chance Qualifiers.Bracket
Teams in bold advanced to the next round. The numbers to the left of each team indicate the team's seeding in its group, and the numbers to the right indicate the number of maps the team won in that match. Teams with map pick/ban choice (i.e., the higher-seeded team or upper-bracket team) are marked by an asterisk. :''Note: Times are in the local time of Los Angeles ( PDT) ( UTC−7).'' ;Group A ;Group B ;Group C ;Group DKnockout stage
The knockouts are a double-elimination tournament that took place from August 16–26, 2022. All matches were a best-of-three series, except for the Lower Bracket Final and the Grand Final, which were a best-of-five series.Qualified teams
Eight teams qualified for the double-elimination playoff portion of the tournament from the group stage.Bracket
Teams in bold advanced to the next round. The numbers to the left of each team indicate the team's seeding in the bracket, while the numbers on the right indicate the number of maps the team won in that match. Teams with map pick/ban choice (i.e., the higher-seeded or upper-bracket teams) are marked with an asterisk. In cases where teams have the same seed from groups, a coin is flipped to determine which team gets the map pick/ban choice. The teams that won the coin toss are indicated with two asterisks. For the grand finals, the team who advanced from the upper bracket gets to ban the first two maps and have map pick/ban choice. :''Note: Times are in the local time of Los Angeles ( PDT) ( UTC−7).''Prize pool
Riot Games raised the prize pool for the 2023 Champions tournament to $2.25 million, an increase from the $1 million of 2022. The winner of Champions received $1 million.Notes
References
{{Valorant Valorant competitions 2023 first-person shooter tournaments