Total Shorty Kills
First Strike: All Qualified Teams per Region
Gabriel Ionica
12/02/2020
First Strike is Valorant’s first officially-sponsored tournament. With regional tournaments all around the world, it can be difficult to track who’s playing where. To help with that, we’ve put together this compendium of every team that has qualified for a regional First Strike tournament all over the world.
North America
- Prize Pool: $100,000 USD
- Start Date: 2020-12-03
- End Date: 2020–12-06
Teams
This is the matchup of the giants. As our very own Brandon Moore said, the spectators’ eyes will be on the powerhouses of Sentinels of TSM. Other NA superstars like Cloud9, Luminosity Gaming, and Dignitas among others, were eliminated in the qualifiers and thus will not be making an appearance.
Europe
- Prize Pool: $100,000 USD
- Start Date: 2020-12-03
- End Date: 2020-12-06
Teams
The European qualifiers saw popular teams like NiP and BIG get eliminated by G2 and nolpenki respectively. According to Naim Rosinski, G2, Team Liquid, and FPX are the fan favorites here but it’s never too late for an upset!
CIS
- Prize Pool: ~$52,500 USD
- Start Date: 2020-12-03
- End Date: 2020-12-06
Teams
Among the famous CIS teams like Team Singularity, forZe, and Gambit Esports are some orgless teams like AoeXe, Axsor, and Aim.Attack. We could potentially be looking at the next king of CIS Valorant here everyone.
Turkey
- Prize Pool: ~$51,500 USD
- Start Date: 2020-12-03
- End Date: 2020-12-06
Teams
- Oxygen Esports
- Futbolist
- Sangal Esports
- BBL Esports
- Mod-Z Esports
- Anatolia Esports
- Beşiktaş Esports
- HaZe Clan
A lot of the teams from the First Strike Turkey tournament have not yet had their time in the global spotlight. As a matter of fact, this is the first tournament some of them have even played in! When compared to the other teams from regions like NA and Europe, everyone here is an underdog which should make their matches even more exciting and unpredictable. Somebody here might even be the next XANTARES, one of Turkey’s most popular and successful CS:GO players.
Korea
- Prize Pool: $100,000 USD
- Start Date: 2020-12-03
- End Date; 2020-12-06
Teams
- Vision Strikers
- F4Q
- Cloud9 Korea
- Crazy Hamster
- TNL Esports
- PROPARTY
- aNg DarkHorse
- T1 Korea
Richard Brown covered this one and he’s right, “the teams that were expected to make it through to the main event have qualified.” Vision Strikers are pretty dominant in their region so their matchup against F4Q might go as predicted. Cloud9 Korea, T1 Korea, and TNL Esports are also big players in this region.
Japan
- Prize Pool: ~$48,000 USD
- Start Date: 2020-12-03
- End Date: 2020-12-06
Teams
Pretty much every team that qualified here has its own, established place in the Japanese scene. Given their run on the Japanese scene, Absolute JUPITER are absolute beasts and are very likely to take this event. Other teams like SCARZ, BlackBird Ignis, REJECT, and DetonatioN Gaming also made it through the qualifiers to the main event.
Asia Pacific
The Asian Pacific region is split into five sub-regions: Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore, Indonesia, and Hong Kong and Taiwan.
- Prize Pool: ~$4,950 USD
- Start Date: 2020-11-23
- End Date: 2020-12-06
Teams
- Attack All Around
- Sharper Esport
- MiTH.Attitude
- Overtime Esports
- Daytrade Gaming
- QConfirm
- NG.Black
- FULL SENSE
First Strike Thailand started very early, on November 23. Overtime Esports and MiTH.Attitude are set to battle it out in the finals on December 6. MiTH.Attitude were invited to the tournament whereas Overtime Esports placed first in the Open Series, making them the underdogs.
- Prize Pool: $10,000 USD
- Start Date: 2020-11-21
- End Date: 2020-12-06
Teams
- NXP.Aether
- Subversive
- ATLAS Esports
- Bestial Esports
- AG.Nefarious
- KADILIMAN
- DFT Revitalize
- ANBU Elite Gaming
- Chimaera
- Bren Esports
- Hashira
- Third Chapter Esports
- ArkAngel
- Affinity Esports
- BV ESPORTS
- WATCH THIS
Judging only by the Liquipedia team pages, Bren Esports are the biggest team here. They own teams in ten total games including CS:GO and League of Legends. That being said, each of the four qualifiers had 128 teams competing so making it to the finals is an impressive feat in and of itself.
- Prize Pool: ~$4,900 USD
- Start Date: 2020-12-03
- End Date: 2020-12-06
Teams
- TODAK
- Reality Rift
- Team SMG
- ex-Paper Rex
- Las Venturas
- Kingsmen
- Excelsa
- Running Dogs
Team SMG are the biggest team to make it out of the qualifiers. Paper Rex, another popular Malaysian team created by ex-CS:GO pro Harley “dsn” Örwall, got an almost entirely new roster after a player played in another event for another team while under contract.
- Prize Pool: ~$7,000 USD
- Start Date: 2020-12-02
- End Date: 2020-12-06
Teams
- BOOM Esports
- Alter Ego
- Somnium Esports
- Morph Team
- Nerd Banana
- AING MAUNG Esports
- RRQ Endeavour
- Team nxl
- Zenith
- XcN Gaming
- Occamy Omega
- ArcXana Esports
- Frostwolf
- Reckless Lads
- Konoha
- Onic Esports
BOOM Esports seem to have the made the most headlines in their region, with several first and third place finishes. That said, they did lose the ESL Community Clash to Alter Ego so be on the look out for a matchup between these two.
- Prize Pool: $20,000 USD
- Start Date: 2020-12-03
- End Date: 2020-12-06
Teams
- LEGENDs
- LJG
- Team Z
- Five Ace e-Sports
- Ahq e-Sports Club
- LT
- Only One Word
- Amateur Team
Out of all the qualified teams, Ahq e-Sports Club seems to be the one with the most highlights, having gone undefeated in their respective qualifier.
Oceania
- Prize Pool: ~$14,750 USD
- Start Date: 2020-12-03
- End Date: 2020-12-06
Teams
Now that’s a star-studded roster. Anyone who has been around the Oceanic esports scene should be familiar with at least a few of the teams here like Mindfreak, Avant Gaming, and ORDER. All of these teams were invited to the Rise of Valour qualifier and, as expected, defeated all of the Open Qualifier teams they went up against. These teams have also been rivals in one tournament or another so look for those rivalries to be squashed in the finals.
Brazil
- Prize Pool: ~$37,720 USD
- Start Date: 2020-12-03
- End Date: 2020-12-06
Teams
The Open Qualifier saw several popular Brazilian teams like Black Dragons, Keyd Stars and eRa Eternity fall to these teams. In addition to that, all of these teams have first place finishes to their name, making the Brazilian finals an all-star tournament.
Latin America
- Prize Pool: $15,000 USD
- Start Date: 2020-11-28
- End Date: 2020-12-06
Teams
- Infinity Esports
- Arctic Gaming Mexico
- LDM Esports
- IGNIS Esports
- LazerKlan
- OG Esports
- Penguins of the night
- Athletica Pro Gaming 9
- Prize Pool: $15,000 USD
- Start Date: 2020-11-28
- End Date: 2020-12-05
Teams
- Dylema Gaming
- Australs
- Feint Gaming
- Furious Gaming
- 9z Team
- Rebirth Esports
- DKS Esports
- Estral Esports
The big-name teams seem to have made short work of the smaller teams here. Two of them stand out in particular, Infinity Esports and Furious Gaming. Infinity Esports are hosts to Juanes “sickLy” Valencia and Javier “RAINMAKER” Cruz, who played professional CS:GO before moving to Valorant. Furious Gaming are best known for their League of Legends team.
MENA (Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa)
- Prize Pool: $10,000 USD
- Start Date: 2020-12-03
- End Date: 2020-12-05
Teams
- The Ultimates
- RvN
- ArchNemesis
- Prize Pool: $10,000 USD
- Start Date: 2020-12-04
- End Date: 2020-12-06
Teams
- Prize Pool: $10,000 USD
- Start Date: 2020-12-03
- End Date: 2020-12-04
Teams
- Team Majesty
- Fox Gaming
- Made in dz
In a very similar fashion to First Strike Latin America, the big-name teams dominated here with the exception of YaLLa Esports. Given that this region is not as developed as mainstream regions, this is the first tournament for many of these teams.
Who do you think will come out on top in their specific First Strike region? Let us know in the comments below! As usual, remember to follow us at Run it Back and join our Discord for all your latest news, extensive guides, and exclusive interviews in the world of Valorant.
