"Strong individual players are what define VCT China": A deep dive into the region with AG's Shr1mp and K1ra

Competition at VCT 2026 - Masters Santiago 2026 has remained fierce so far, with almost every game in the playoffs being nailbitingly close. Yet one of the main talking points this event has revolved around the power level of China, a region whose Swiss Stage representatives in EDward Gaming and Xi Lai Gaming failed to win a single map before being eliminated. By the end of the stage, it was clear that China was by far the weakest region, leaving few to be excited about the region's first seed, All Gamers.

Despite being the champions of VALORANT Champions Tour 2025 - China Kickoff, All Gamers was not a statistically impressive team, neither did they look like the clearcut best team in the region with a close 3-2 win over XLG. So when such a team eliminated Gentle Mates from the playoffs of Santiago, China's death was greatly exaggerated much to everyone's surprise.

However, All Gamers didn't have a strong start in the playoffs to get to this point. The international mainstays G2 Esports absolutely thrashed China's first seed in their opening game. Following this defeat, THESPIKE had a chance to chat with IGL Huang "K1ra" Zhihao and Yang "Shr1mp" Yong about their thoughts on the power level of China and some of the key differences with other regions.

Note: The following text was translated to English as it was conducted in Mandarin by the author of this text. The interview took place on March 7 during Masters Santiago.

An IGL diff

VALORANT officially launched in China in 2023, three years after the rest of the world. Naturally, the esport ecosystem in the region would be years behind in experience, requiring a massive amount of catchup to be done and leading to Kelden "Boostio" Pupello's infamous claim that "China will never be better than NA". With the context of China's natural inexperience in mind, it only makes sense that K1ra mentioned Jacob "valyn" Batio as the person he admired the most, from one IGL to another.

G2 were just too strong today. valyn completely outcalled us.

One of the telltale signs of China's inexperience comes down to IGLing, not having as strong of a repetoire as someone like valyn for those crucial mid-round adaptations. "They were one step ahead of us the entire time," K1ra reflected, "of course, they played really well, but we wanted to focus on our own game today."

K1ra is the sole remaining player from AG's 2025 lineup, but has stepped into a brand-new IGL role for the 2026 season. When asked about this transition, K1ra revealed that he "hasn't fully adapted yet and is still learning."

Hence when asked about what he wanted to learn coming into such a gruelling series, K1ra continued highlighting the "calling and experience that G2 have."

Diving into China

While China might look like the weakest region from their results, Shr1mp and K1ra highlighted some of the pain points in the level of play of their region. The level of calling was immediately brought into the discussion once again, but they talked about the usage of utility between the regions. "Other regions use utility with surgical precision," Shr1mp explained, "while sometimes we fail to have the correct utility for the specific situation."

Instead, the "strong individual players are what define VCT China as a region," K1ra declared.

Following All Gamer's impressive victory over Gentle Mates, we asked K1ra to follow up on his emphasis on China's individual talent.

I wouldn’t change my answer. Today the five of us were just in the groove and I think our alignment was really good

Shr1mp competed for FunPlus Phoenix in 2025 while K1ra was already with All Gamers. As experienced players in China's VALORANT ecosystem, the two believe that competition within China is tight, with teams being quite evenly matched without a clear centralization of power at the top.

What's next for China?

With All Gamers, and by extension China, eliminated from Santiago in 5th-6th place, the future of the region remains uncertain. Yet the squad's identification of the biggest areas of learning: calling, utility, and macro ideas, posits a more hopeful trajectory for China, and their performance against Gentle Mates clearly shows the potential the region as a whole has. Perhaps if China imported more coaches and IGLs who could get the region up to speed, the region would be able to accelerate their improvement to show even more of a fighting chance at the next international events. We have seen China at the top before. As a region brimming with talent and the willingness to learn, we could definitely see that again.

Might that happen at Champions Shanghai this year?

Tune into THESPIKE.GG to catch the excitement of Santiago as the top 4 teams duke it out.