In Valorant VCT – Stage 2 Challengers I noticed a trend in the North American (NA) brackets. Teams start in the upper bracket and move to the lower bracket upon their first loss. Upon losing and moving to the lower bracket, then facing an opponent who had yet to play this day, the previously losing teams were more likely to lose again against the fresh team.
How often did this scenario really happen? Investigating the VCT Stage 2 matches in all regions, this happened a total of 16 times (9 in NA, 6 in LATAM, 1 in Japan). The resulting losses were: 7 of 9 in NA, 2 of 6 in LATAM, and 1of 1 in Japan. This means teams losing the early matches also lost the late matches 62.5% of the time.
This same scheduling is planned in VCT Stage 3 NA Challenger 1. It will be curious to see if the trend continues. Teams may wish to counter this trend by LOSING in the first round, and then playing the tilted teams in the lower brackets to make it to the grand finals.
