NOVA Esports are back in VCT China. The organisation beat Unsettled Resentment 3-0 in the Week 2 grand final of the VCT 2026 China Threshold in Shanghai on 1 November, winning the second and final guest spot for the 2027 season. Unsettled Resentment never reached more than six rounds on a map: NOVA took Lotus 13-5, Abyss 13-5 and Split 13-6.
It is a quick turnaround for a team that looked to be on the way out of the league. NOVA were one of four organisations reported to have been left off the 2027-28 partner list, alongside FunPlus Phoenix, Titan Esports Club and Wolves Esports. A week after losing one Threshold final, they won the other.
How NOVA won the second guest spot
The Threshold ran over two weeks at THE HUB Performing Arts Center in Shanghai, from 21 October to 1 November, with each week’s winner taking a guest place in the 2027 league. Twelve teams entered, including former partners NOVA, FunPlus Phoenix, Titan, Wolves and Dragon Ranger Gaming.
NOVA’s first attempt came close. They beat Any Questions Gaming 2-1 in the Week 1 quarter-finals and KeepBest Gaming 2-0 in the semi-finals, then ran into Dragon Ranger Gaming in the grand final on 25 October. DRG won 3-0, taking Summit 13-8, Split 13-3 and Lotus 13-9, and with it the first guest spot. DRG had swept their way there, beating Rare Atom 2-0, FunPlus Phoenix 2-1 and Titan 2-0 on the other side of the bracket. They had also been reported as missing out on partnership, so the win put them straight back into the league they were about to leave.
That left one place and a second week to fight for it. NOVA made the grand final again, and this time the opponent was Unsettled Resentment, who had beaten Octagonal Disposition Gaming 2-0 in Week 1 before going out to Titan 2-0 in the quarter-finals. The final itself was one-sided. NOVA held Unsettled Resentment to 16 rounds across three maps and closed the series without dropping a map.
The roster that won it is GuanG, swagzor, qiutiaN, Ezeir and cb. The players celebrated online soon after the final. For an organisation that was facing a year outside the top level, it means NOVA start 2027 in the league instead of outside it.
What the Threshold means for VCT China in 2027
With both guest spots filled, VCT China now has its 2027 field of ten teams. The eight partners named in the report are EDward Gaming, JD Gaming, Bilibili Gaming, TYLOO, All Gamers, Trace Esports, Xi Lai Gaming and Weibo Gaming. TYLOO, who won VCT China Stage 2 and played at Champions 2026 in Shanghai, are the most recent domestic champions among them. The report came from Sheep Esports and had not been confirmed by Riot Games at the time. Dragon Ranger Gaming and NOVA join them as the two guest teams.
Weibo Gaming’s return and Xi Lai Gaming’s move from guest to partner were the headline changes in that report. The Threshold gave the organisations that missed out a direct route back, settled over two weeks of matches in Shanghai. Two of them, DRG and NOVA, took it. FunPlus Phoenix, Titan and Wolves did not get back in.
The format fits the wider change Riot announced for 2027, when VALORANT esports moves away from the league-only structure towards cups and open qualifiers. We broke down that plan when it was revealed in our explainer on the VCT 2027 format, open qualifiers and partnerships. In China, the Threshold is the first sign of how that will work in practice: a fixed partner group, plus a small number of places that teams outside it have to win on the server.
For NOVA, a guest spot is a one-season place, not a partnership. Holding on to it beyond 2027 will depend on results and on how Riot handles guest teams in the next cycle. The full bracket and results are on Liquipedia.
