#luna.live

hi! so as masters santiago approaches (it starts later today), i see lol esports people have interest in it. so, i thought it might be a good idea to introduce the teams and players. so you guys can go into watching the event with context!

so there are 12 teams going to masters santiago, three teams from each region. here is the link to the format explainer video for the event as well, since it functions quite differently than a lolesport event. and here is the intro cinematic. riot has only started doing this this year, but it’s pretty cool! (riot also posts the teasers of the matches as well, but that’s the same a lol esports so im not mentioning that too much).

firstly, before i get into any of the teams, i want to mention vlr. this is where you can go to see the stats, schedule, past matches, player history, etc., it’s a really good resource. i would also like to mention the press conferences. there was a pre-event one that happened yesterday and will be ones from each team (win or loss) that happens after the match. you can easily find them on the valo2asia youtube channel. okay NOW im going to go by region to introduce each team. (im not doing china since i don’t watch that region)

VCT: Americas

NRG (3rd seed): okay i am going to be honest, i hate this team lol. but, they are the 2025 champions winners. so, there is something interesting about them. they also have keiko, who is very good. and ethan too, who has won 2 international events. that’s all i got though.

G2 (2nd seed): i also am not the biggest fan of this team, but they are an ascension team! if you don’t know what that means, g2 is basically a team (the core of it at least) that played in tier 2 and won the tier 2 america’s circuit in 2023, earning them a spot in tier one for the next two years. this team also has to continue to do well in tier one (making champs each season) to keep their tier 1 spot, which they obviously have done.

this team is pretty good, they were the favorites going into each international event last year (except for champs 2025, they were secondary favorites there behind prx). they had also won all three domestic finals in americas last year as well.

Furia (1st seed): THIS TEAM IS SUPER COOL! okay so if you know anything about furia, you would know in the history of their valorant esports journey, they were one of the worst teams. like ever. and then they did a rebuild before this season, and now they are like really good.

Everyone on this team is pretty good, but i would highlight koalanoob specifically. He is their duelist player and pretty good (literally watch clips of him using the op). i would also like to highlight artzin. He’s the igl for the team, and was on mibr in 2024 and 2025. mibr in 2024 wasn’t that good, but in 2025 they were pretty good (it was the team with aspas). last year was kinda the year where he proved himself as a player (and became an igl for some of the year).

i would also like to shoutout eeiu, he’s been grinding for the past few years (on 100t) and is pretty good.

VCT: EMEA

Team Liquid (3rd seed): this team is pretty cool! specifically nats! (im a nats fan, sorry lol). look at this cool (and funny) nats speech btw (it is a youtube short from platchat, but i think it explains a lot). nats has been playing the game since the very beginning, and has one international trophy with gambit in 2021. purp0 was also on that gambit team (though in 2022 and the team was called m3c that year)!

anyway, the liquid team this year is a bit of a rebuild, only nats and kamo stayed from last year. and because it’s a rebuild, and how their kickoff went, i wouldn’t say they are favorites or anything. frankly, i think they might bomb out. but it is fun to watch this team.

Gentle Mates (2nd seed): this team is cool and exciting. they are one of two emea teams that are actually pretty fun to watch (the other is bbl, we’ll get to them). if you know nothing about vct emea, all you need to know is the region plays slow and does a lot of defaults and is (my opinion) pretty boring. gentle mates does not do that. so for that alone, they are cool.

outside of that, they have marteen (who i would say is probably one of if not the best yoru player in the world currently). he is very fun to watch play. this team also has minny, who is also quite fun to watch play! i would also like to give some info on starxo, the igl of the team. he was on ascend in 2021. aka the team that went and won the very first champions event (which was against gambit; the team nats was on). he hasn’t really done much in the past couple of years, so his name is not that well known, but there’s that fun little tidbit.

BBL (1st seed): this team is another ascension team! well not really, the 5 players are ascension players (they all played in tier 2 last year, and did qualify to tier 1 with pacific esports, but the team got transferred to the bbl org). they are a turkish team who have been playing together for a very long time (since 2024). this is also a group of players who like being teammates with each other and trust each other a lot. they also want to win with each other. to the point that, in the offseason before this year, some of them were given offers from other teams (like fnatic), and the players turned them down. the reasoning they gave? they wanted to win together and be teammates with each other. and i think that is super cool and confident of them to do.

VCT: Pacific

Paper Rex (3rd seed): do i need to introduce paper rex? i really dont think i do lol, this is an iconic team. all the players on this team (execpt for maybe invy) are well known in the vct space. BUT, if you do know nothing about them, they are a team that likes to run in and create chaos. they have been called the ‘w gaming’ team for a while, mainly because of that. this is a team that likes to play out-of-the-box stuff (though a bit less so nowadays with the current meta) and do it really well.

i can’t really pick one player to highlight as someone to watch, really it’s all of the players. but, i will mention forsaken. just for the fact that he is an extremely versatile player and probably one of the most “complete” players playing in tier one.

T1 (2nd seed): i introduce you to t1, the superteam. this team has izu, a very good player that fills the role of flex pretty well, and munchkin, the goat igl (and probably one of the smartest players in the game), and meteor, a 2-time international winner that is just so good to watch. they also have buzz, a very strong player with tons of experience, and stax, a very solid player who has almost never played without buzz in pro play. so, needless to say, this team is pretty good.

i would like to highlight munchkin a bit though. he’s been playing valorant for many years now (as an igl) and is really good at it. he was on that geng team in 2024 (that got to 2 international finals and won one of them). he also is most likely retiring after this year (korean military service has caught up to him. actually. he was supposed to go at the end of 2025, but delayed it by a year to compete this season), so this really is (probably) his last chance at winning anything. and really, i think it would be really cool if he does.

Nongshim Red Force (1st seed): guys i love this nongshim roster. they are also an ascension team, they won ascension in 2024 (with sin prisa gaming) and got to play in tier 1 in 2025. but, since they didn’t make champs in 2025, they had to go back to ascension to fight for their spot in tier 1 (which they kept).

this roster is super fun to watch mainly because they play the game so differently than how it’s “supposed” to be played. and that is primarily due to one of their players, dambi. he’s a neon main (literally almost only plays neon) and has such a mastery of the agent that it’s hard to shut him down (his job in matches is to run in and basically distract the enemy team with fast movement and a shotgun). and dambi is kinda what nonghsim’s win-con is, if you shut dambi down, it stops a lot of what their playstyle is (and relies on - getting into sites by using dambi as bait/a distraction). but its really hard to shut dambi down. so. yeah.

anyway, this team also has rb on it, who used to be on that old vision strikers team (that got turned into drx). y’know, the one that had a 100 match win streak record (that still hasn’t been beaten). yeah, that team. (stax and buzz were also on that vision strikers/drx team as well!)

okay. anyway. i don’t really have much else to add (im not doing vct cn because i dont watch that region so i dont have the best insight). i hope you guys do have a fun time watching masters santiago! and that this post made the event make a little more sense!