How to Watch VALORANT Champions 2026

VALORANT Champions 2026 streams free on the league's official Twitch channel — no subscription needed.

Sixteen teams are drawn into four groups of four (no two teams from the same region in a group) and play GSL-style double-elimination, best-of-three matches, with the top two in each group advancing. The eight-team playoff is double elimination, best-of-three except for the lower-bracket final and grand final, which are best-of-five.

VALORANT Champions is the world championship of Riot Games' VALORANT Champions Tour and the final event of every competitive season. First held in Berlin in 2021, it now caps a calendar of four regional leagues (Americas, EMEA, Pacific and China) and two international Masters events. Sixteen teams qualify: the top two from Stage 2 in each league, plus the two best remaining teams from each league on the season-long Championship Points table.

Shanghai hosts the 2026 edition, the first Champions staged in China and the city's second global VALORANT event after Masters Shanghai in 2024. The group stage and early playoff rounds use the 5,600-capacity Jing'an Sports Center, and the final four teams move to the 18,000-seat Mercedes-Benz Arena, where the grand final is scheduled for October 18. NRG arrive as defending champions after beating Fnatic in the 2025 final in Paris.

The tournament also closes a chapter for the circuit. It is the last Champions under VCT's current partnership structure, because Riot has announced that from 2027 the path to Masters and Champions reopens to non-partner teams through open qualifiers. Riot laid out that 2027 structure in April 2026, with the first open qualifiers starting in November, so the teams in Shanghai are playing the last world championship before open qualification returns. The champion collects $1,000,000 of the $2,250,000 prize pool.