Trace Esports Secures Spot as the First Team to Qualify for VALORANT Masters Bangkok

Chinese esports organization Trace Esports have officially confirmed a spot at the VALORANT Masters Bangkok. The team pulled off such a feat after defeating Bilibili Gaming 2-1 in the VCT China upper bracket final. This is their second consecutive qualification to a major international VALORANT event as Trace previously made it to the top eight at VALORANT Champions 2024.

This match was highly competitive, with Trace opening strongly as they took the first map, Bind, quite convincingly 13-8. They lost the second map, Haven, with a narrow 13-10, but managed to seal the last map, Lotus, decisively 13-6. This earned Song ‘FengF’ Xuefeng the star player of the team the MVP title for his conspicuous display.

With this win, Trace became the first team to secure a spot at VALORANT’s first international event of 2025, which will kick off on February 20. Unlike VCT China, the other regional leagues-EMEA, Pacific, and Americas-only began their respective qualification events in late January. This is the reason why no other team has moved ahead yet.

Meanwhile, Bilibili Gaming still has another chance to qualify. They will face reigning VALORANT world champions EDward Gaming in the lower bracket final on January 24th. EDward Gaming, despite their world champion status, was sent to the lower bracket after losing 2-0 to Trace earlier this week. Since then, they defeated Ascension winners XLG Esports and Dragon Racer Gaming to stay in contention.

Other than VCT China, different regions are heating things up. In EMEA, for example, Karmine Corp was to lock horns with GIANTX, while Fnatic took up NAVI a little later; all these fought for their survival slots. Then again, the Americas league sees competing names such as FURIA Esports, Evil Geniuses, Cloud9, and MIBR.

But fans can catch every minute of the VCT EMEA and Americas Kickoff events on the official Twitch and YouTube channels of VALORANT. With so much on the line, the first major event of VALORANT in 2025 just continues to build momentum.