The Stage 2 Valorant Champions Tour Asia Pacific Challengers start today at 03:00 GMT, with Indonesia’s Boom Esports taking on Vietnam’s Cerberus Esports. You can read more about the tournament format and the stages here.

Let us look at the teams participating in the Play-ins stage for the tournament region-wise. 

From South Asia, we have the second Seed in Enigma Gaming. They had an impressive run in the Skyesports Champions series, the South Asia qualifiers, where the lost just one match. The team is a powerhouse in South Asia and would bring the heat to the APAC. 

From Hong Kong/ Taiwan, we have Ghetto Artists, who were undefeated in the VCT HK/TW qualifiers Group Stage but couldn’t close it out in the Playoffs losing to Griffin Esports, The first Seed from Hong Kong/ Taiwan. The team has some fantastic players and interesting agent compositions, and they sure would be here to win.

From Indonesia, we have Boom Esports, the third seed from the region. In the VCT, Indonesia qualifiers Boom had a dominant run, losing only to Alter Ego, the second Seed from Indonesia. The team has a pretty strong core and strong duelist, which would be crucial in the team’s performance. 

From Malaysia/ Singapore, we have Bleed Esports, the third seed from the region. Bleed had a shaky start to the tournament, barely managing to qualify for VCT MY/SG Qualifiers Playoffs and even losing the opening playoff match, But the managed to survive the lower bracket, eventually losing only to Paper-Rex, Arguably the tournament favorites. Bleed would not yield to anyone and seek revenge from their peers at VCT APAC Challenger. 

From Philipines, we have Rex Regum Qeon (RRQ), the third Seed from VCT APAC Qualifiers Philipines. They were the second seed in the VCT PH playoffs and qualified for VCT APAC Challengers by winning their opening match. They would surely bring the Filipino heart to the play-in stage and take revenge from the top seeds in VCT APAC Challengers.

From Thailand, Made in Thailand is the third seed representative. The team had a shaky start to the tournament and qualified for the VCT TH Qualifier playoffs as the 5th seed. They 2-0’d all their opponents in the playoffs except for Xerxia, the top Seed from Thailand, and FW esports, the second seed. The team would ensure they are up for a rematch against their peers and bring all their might to qualify for the VCT APAC Group Stage. 

Lastly, from Vietnam, We have Cerberus Esports and Team Big BAAM. Cerberus Esports were almost unbeaten in the VCT VN group stage, losing only one match, and qualified as the second seed for the playoffs, and team Big Baam was the third seed losing 2/7 games. 

In the playoffs, though, Fancy United made a miraculous lower bracket run to completely dominate all the teams in the region and become the first seed. Both Cerberus and Team Big BAAM qualified immediately after winning their opening games but fell to Fancy United to become the second and third seed from Vietnam. 

These eight teams are divided into two groups, out of which a total of four teams would qualify for the group stage of Stage 2 VCT APAC Challengers.  

The Fixtures for the Play-in stage would be as follows.

Group A:

9th June 03:00 GMT BOOM Esports vs CERBERUS esports.

10th June 06:00 GMT Made in Thailand vs. Enigma Gaming. 

11th June 3:00 GMT Winners Game.

11th June 9:00 GMT Elimination Game.

12th June 3:00 GMT Decider Game.

Group B:

9th June 06:00 GMT Bleed vs. Ghetto Artists

10th June 03:00 GMT Rex Regum Qeon vs. Team Big BAAM.

11th June 6:00 GMT Winners Game.

11th June 12:00 GMT Elimination Game.

12th June 6:00 GMT Decider Game.

Out of these eight teams, only four would qualify for the Group Stage, and it would be grueling three days of Valorant for the Asian fans. All the teams would bring the region’s best and try to win the whole event. Good Luck to the teams, and may the best teams move forward. 

Skins are a crucial part of the Valorant experience, With Skins like Reaver and Oni being notorious for improving a player’s gameplay. Controversial opinions aside, the skin sure adds fun to the game with animations and unique sounds. 

Riot understands how much the player base loves the skins, casuals and professionals alike, and hears communities’ opinions on the skin sets, Adding fan-favorite skins and weapons to the game, capitalizing on the love skins receive, and releasing new bundles every fortnight.

After the Pride bundle, which commemorates the Pride Month, and The Neptune bundle, Riot has announced the release of a new skin bundle Xenohunter and the Valorant Patch 4.11. The new bundle would replace the Neptune bundle and be available in the market on 8th or 9th June, depending on your location. 

Xenohunter Valorant Price:

The new bundle would include a bayonet knife, a Frenzy, a Bucky, a Phantom, and an Odin and is like to cost around 7100 VP, with each weapon costing 1775 VP and the knife cost 3550 VP. All the weapons seem to be upgradable and have a very cybernetic military-esque finish. 

The inclusion of the Bayonet makes it more military-esque as the Bayonet is used as a melee by many armed forces. The bundle also includes an upgradeable bucky, and it has been a while since we had one. 

The Phantom audio sounds are terrific. It also has a side tracker, which seems like an upgrade. The last phantom with the upgrade was RGX Phantom 2.0, with five levels. There is no additional upgrade mentioned for the bundle as of now. 

The bundle also includes an Odin. The last upgradeable Odin was Prime 2.0. Though unpopular, Odin is a powerhouse of a gun and is used by Sova/Fade mains worldwide. 

The only weapon that hasn’t seen much attention is Judge, which hasn’t had an upgradeable skin in a while. Let’s hope Riot decides to add it to the game soon. Talking about the Xenohunter skin bundle, let’s hope it is as impressive as it seems. 

It’s been six months since we had a map released in Valorant. The latest map, Fracture, was released with patch 3.05 in September 2021, with mixed reception from the casuals. Since then, there haven’t been any new maps. Three new agents, Chamber, Neon, and Fade, were added, but no new maps. 

A new map, Codenamed: PITT, was leaked on Twitter by ValorLeaks a while ago. Also, Riot likes to sneak into what’s next in the Battlepass card. The battlepass card has an underwater trolley and is possibly an aquarium of some sort. 

From the image released by Valorant on Twitter: it seems like an underwater town/city. The text on the picture is Portuguese, saying, “Celebrate our City, A marvel below the Waves.” At the same time, the image is titled Shrine Day. 

Valorant official Twitter account captioned the image prepare to dive. Using all this, we can guess that the new map would be an underground city or shrine. The map is located near the coast of Portugal and likely on Earth two or Omega Earth. 

Lore suggests that Chamber has already managed to meet himself from Earth two. Fade is from the Omega Earth, while Valorant initiative has been trying to create a portal to Omega Earth for a while. The release of a new map may suggest they can harness neon’s electricity for the portal Killjoy planned. 

The map’s release won’t just be exciting for the game but would also add to the lore. For people who aren’t following it, they should. It’s intricate and intriguing for a game that is a tact shooter. Riot did put in a lot of effort for the lore. 

From an E-sport’s perspective, The map would be the 8th addition to the map pool. Adding the 8th map will change the map veto process if Riot decides to keep all the maps in the active map pool. This wasn’t a problem with CSGO, as they always had only eight active duty maps for Competitive CSGO. We’d have to wait for the map’s release to see what Riot does to tackle the ‘MAP VETO’ issue.

If Riot decides to have eight active map pools, They will separate themselves from their Tact-FPS competitor CSGO. For now, we have to wait and watch how the scene and map pick change based on adding the new map. 

Let’s prepare to dive on 22nd June, The day Episode V ACT I drops along with the new map ‘PITT.’