According to a former RA LPL club manager and an LPL pro player, VCT CN franchised orgs are reportedly required to also field a LoL team — which is said to be why XLG and TE already set up their own LoL divisions. Those divisions currently compete in LDL (China's secondary-tier LoL league) rather than LPL (the top tier), since the barrier to entering LPL remains fairly high.

There's also a wrinkle: LPL club contracts are said to be up for renewal at the end of this year, meaning some orgs may choose to keep their LoL division going while others let it lapse — potentially opening the door for a different club to step in and grow the overall pool of participants.

KBG 2-1 AQ

This match is part of China's secondary (second-tier) Valorant league. Only the two grand finalists of this secondary league earn a spot to compete in the VCT Play-In stage. This specific series is the Winners' Bracket Final of the secondary league playoffs — the winner advances directly toward a Play-In slot with a bracket advantage, while the loser will have to fight through the lower bracket for the other spot.

Worth noting: AQ's roster features S1Mon

Map Overview

#	Map	Pick	Score	Winner
1	Breeze	KBG pick	13 - 6	KBG
2	Haven	AQ pick	6 - 13	AQ
3	Split	Decider	13 - 10	KBG

Map 1 — Breeze | KBG 13 - 6 AQ (KBG led 10-3 at half)

KBG

Player	ACS	K	D	A	+/-
Krst1Ng	247	17	10	7	+7
Ying	212	17	8	5	+9
Tonk	212	15	12	7	+3
Akeman	203	14	14	5	0
Sibeastw0w	175	11	11	6	0

AQ

Player	ACS	K	D	A	+/-
juicy	224	16	13	3	+3
5CM	198	12	18	3	-6
dannyy	181	9	14	10	-5
S1Mon	175	12	14	1	-2
FFs	114	6	15	7	-9

Map 2 — Haven | KBG 6 - 13 AQ (AQ led 8-5 at half)

KBG

Player	ACS	K	D	A	+/-
Ying	201	12	18	3	-6
Akeman	197	12	17	3	-5
Sibeastw0w	186	13	14	2	-1
Krst1Ng	144	9	17	5	-8
Tonk	72	5	14	6	-9

AQ

Player	ACS	K	D	A	+/-
5CM	281	20	11	6	+9
juicy	279	18	13	5	+5
S1Mon	217	15	8	5	+7
FFs	213	16	9	8	+7
dannyy	170	11	10	4	+1

Map 3 — Split | KBG 13 - 10 AQ (KBG trailed 5-8 at half, closed it out)

KBG

Player	ACS	K	D	A	+/-
Ying	329	25	17	9	+8
Akeman	226	20	15	5	+5
Krst1Ng	168	15	14	5	+1
Sibeastw0w	194	15	17	8	-2
Tonk	144	12	17	7	-5

AQ

Player	ACS	K	D	A	+/-
dannyy	263	23	15	9	+8
5CM	214	17	17	1	0
FFs	189	13	20	7	-7
S1Mon	186	13	16	14	-3
juicy	186	14	19	4	-5

Full Match Stats (All 3 Maps Combined)

KBG (Series Winner)

Player	ACS	K	D	A	+/-
Ying	247	54	43	17	+11
Akeman	209	46	46	13	0
Krst1Ng	186	41	41	17	0
Sibeastw0w	185	39	42	16	-3
Tonk	143	32	43	20	-11

AQ

Player	ACS	K	D	A	+/-
5CM	231	49	46	10	+3
juicy	230	48	45	12	+3
dannyy	205	43	39	23	+4
S1Mon	193	40	38	20	+2
FFs	172	35	44	22	-9

The play-ins and the first round of the playoffs will be held at Chengdu North Sports Hall, while the TOP6 matches will take place at the Financial City Performing Arts Center.

The play-in venue is actually smaller than even the regular season venue — probably because organizers anticipated lower attendance early on, likely due to fewer popular teams being involved at that stage.

Venue details:

• North Sports Hall — capacity: 4,000
• Financial City Performing Arts Center (the venue that hosted MSI 24 and IEM Chengdu) — capacity: 12,000

The three teams of VCT CN will face a schedule of one match every two days starting from July 14. EDG and XLG, who returned from the Masters event, even went to other cities to shoot promotional videos midway, facing the situation that they are unable to scrim for the new meta and new map pool (EDG is also not a full roster).

It's already turned into an open scrim.

SiuFatBB-sensei, I still remember you 😫
Toronto Wolves, third place stunned the whole VCT 🤯
SiuFatBB-sensei, I still remember you 😢
Those uphill battles in losing games, you always had our back 😊

The traffic cop hasn't waved his arms in ages, the team dives in and drops to last
Fat Saint Emperor, so low and listless 😴
Aim stats sitting dead at the bottom
In a 3v2 retake, rushing straight to an empty site 🧑‍🦽

You aced the reading section, but forgot there was a listening test
Hearing the bench news, that third-place run fades into memory 😣
That Guan Dao got tucked away into legend