EDward Gaming and Sentinels eliminated from VALORANT Champions 2025

Reigning VALORANT Champion EDward Gaming and North America’s Sentinels have become the first teams to be eliminated from VALORANT Champions 2025.

The two teams were sent home by Team Liquid and XLG Esports, respectively, with both teams able to qualify for the playoffs if the organisations win upcoming decider matches.

It was a devastating day for last year’s Champions winner EDward Gaming (EDG). The team lost its shot at becoming the first back-to-back VALORANT champions when VCT EMEA Stage 2 winner, Team Liquid, won Group C’s elimination match 2-1.

The first map of the series, Sunset, left many Liquid fans wondering what had just happened to one of EMEA’s best teams. Following a pistol round loss and a long tech pause, Liquid looked shaken for the remainder of the map. Despite two early timeouts, the team repeatedly made disjointed plays or misused key utility during its site executes. 

Meanwhile, EDG’s Zheng ‘ZmjjKK’ Yongkang had a dominant performance on Neon, delivering a kill-death ratio (KDA) of 22/9/1 and a 358 average combat score (ACS). Liquid could only secure three rounds towards the end of Sunset and lost its map pick 3-13.

Facing early elimination, Team Liquid returned to its former glory on Abyss. Especially, in-game leader (IGL), Ayaz ‘nAts’ Akhmetshin, made a miraculous recovery to achieve a KDA of 27/7/0 and 349 ACS.

The rest of Team Liquid now looked warmed up, as well, and actually out-aimed EDG on many occasions. Moreover, Kamil ‘kamo’ Frąckowiak performed great site entries in the first half (9-3) as he took advantage of Jett’s vertical mobility. 

EDG never managed to build a healthy economy after losing its defensive pistol round. Similarly, the Chinese team forced an attack Operator following its pistol win in the second half. The risk didn’t pay off and propelled EDG back into an economic disadvantage. Shutting down EDG’s A hits reliably, Liquid evened out the match score (13-6).

The series concluded with a scrappy game on Bind. Although EDG won another two pistol rounds, several thrifties disrupted the economy of both teams. The two rivals also had a lot of success with their defence Operator buys. As a result, countless close rounds came down to micro mistakes and individual performances.

Interestingly, Team Liquid started many of its attack rounds on the back foot, but was ultimately bailed out by nAts’ hero plays (6-6). On EDG’s attack side, the Chinese team often emerged victorious until its opponent capitalised on cheeky Judge plays to stabilise. 

Overtime featured even more Operator purchases from both sides, but it was Team Liquid that persevered and secured Bind 15-13.

VCT Americas’ third seed, Sentinels, suffered a similar fate as EDG. Following XLG Esports’ defeat against Sentinels at Masters Toronto, Group A’s fourth seed secured a 2-1 comeback to take revenge.

The series kicked off with Sentinel’s attack on Abyss. The team first conditioned XLG to expect early mid-control and then successfully transitioned to more direct site hits. It was primarily thanks to hero plays that XLG bounced back slightly to 5-7.

On defence, Sentinels found success by hiding in a leak-out on-site smoke on A. In addition, layered utility and cheeky Omen plays from Marshall ‘N4RRATE’ Massey facilitated many post-plant retakes. On the back of two pistol round wins, Sentinels stole XLG’s map pick 13-10.

On Lotus, Sentinels was confronted with XLG’s triple-sentinel team composition, which is surprisingly good at taking C-control and stalling post-plant situations. Although plenty of VODs featuring this comp are available, Sentinels didn’t have a convincing defence default. Instead of fighting towards C-mount, the Americas team prioritised proactivity on A.

It took an ACE from Zachary ‘zekken’ Patrone for Sentinels to win its only full buy round in an otherwise disappointing 3-9 half. XLG, on the other hand, displayed solid defaulting while Arthur ‘Rarga’ Churyumov and Teng ‘happywei’ Min-wei fragged heavily on their favourite duelist agents, Sage and Cypher.

Attempting an early second-half snowball, Sentinels took the fourth pistol of the series and the bonus. Its attack protocols were successful until XLG responded by fighting for early A-control. Such adaptability allowed XLG to close out the map 13-11.

The final showdown was a battle between two Viper/Omen team compositions on Haven. XLG had a mixed attack half (5-7). The Chinese team was slowed down heavily after securing its first and only pistol of the series. Sentinels had previously relied on the Viper setup popularised by Pacific’s Gen.G, but now used Cloud 9’s Viper wall for C/B main. Similarly, XLG had to adjust to its opponent’s new on-site Viper orb for A.

Thankfully for XLG, Rarga and happywei’s deadly aim carried over into the final map. Whilst Zekken was the primary target in the first half, the majority of Sentinels’ players had their heads popped wherever they prodded on the attack. The resulting confidence fuelled XLG to defend more proactively and seal its comeback (13-8).

With EDG and Sentinels eliminated from VALORANT Champions 2025, today’s survivors will soon fight for one of the four remaining Playoffs slots. On September 21st, Liquid and DRX will have a rematch while XLG and GIANTX will face off for the first time in Paris.

In the meantime, fans can tune into the second round of elimination matches tomorrow. At PM BST, Group B’s Bilibili Gaming and Rex Regum Qeon (RRQ) will take the stage. Afterwards, Group D’s G2 Esports and Dragon Ranger Gaming will fight for survival in the tournament.

All VALORANT Champions matches are broadcast on VCT’s official YouTube and Twitch channels.