OpTic Gaming swept LOUD in Sunday’s best-of-five grand final to win the Valorant Champions Tour 2022: Stage 1 Masters at Reykjavik, Iceland.
OpTic won three closely contested maps — 13-9 on Ascent, 14-12 on Bind and 15-13 on Breeze — and took home the $200,000 grand prize out of a $675,000 prize pool.
The grand final was a rematch of the upper-bracket final, in which LOUD won 2-1 to knock OpTic into the lower-bracket final. OpTic trounced ZETA DIVISION 3-0 in Saturday’s lower-bracket final to stay alive.
It was a dream run for the American organization, which only placed second in the North American Challengers tournament to qualify for Reykajvik and dropped its opening match in the Group Stage earlier this month.
Facing elimination at that point, OpTic beat KRU Esports and XERXIA to emerge as the second seed from Group B.
Valorant Champions NA Stage 1 Challengers prize pool:
1. $200,000 — OpTic Gaming
2. $120,000 — LOUD
3. $85,000 — ZETA DIVISION
4. $65,000 — Paper Rex
5-6. $40,000 — DRX, G2 Esports
7-8. $25,000 — Team Liquid, The Guard
9-10. $15,000 — Ninjas in Pyjamas, XERXIA
11-12. $10,000 — Fnatic, KRU Esports
DNP. $25,000 — FunPlus Phoenix
FunPlus Phoenix were awarded $25,000 after travel restrictions in Ukraine and Russia forced some of their players to miss the competition.
–Field Level Media