What has VCT Americas been up to in between Stage 1 and Stage 2?

Plenty has been said about the Americas teams that participated in VALORANT Champions Tour 2025 - Masters Toronto 2025 (most notably, that they fell short of expectations). Yet everyone else in Americas has fallen under the radar for the past two months. Prior to VALORANT Champions Tour 2025 - Americas Stage 2, a Riot Games hosted press conference allowed players and coaches from teams like Cloud9, Evil Geniuses, and Leviatán to speak about their preparation for the upcoming stage, and what it would take Americas to bounce back on the global stage.

New faces, new changes

New faces in the Americas will emerge in Stage 2, many of which being hungry rookies wanting to prove themselves on the biggest stage they have been on in their careers. Leviatán had perhaps the largest shakeup in Americas, benching VCT 2023 - Champions's MVP Max "Demon1" Mazanov and Daniel "Rossy" Abedrabbo for Eduardo "sato" Sato and Anthony "Okeanos" Nguyen, two rookies who were previously on M80. When asked about these changes, LEV's Corbin Daniel "C0M" Lee and Francisco "kiNgg" Alberto Aravena were extremely confident:

We realised the best approach was to build around the core (kiNgg, C0M, and tex) by adding two rookies with insane potential, which has really helped improve the team environment.

KRÜ Esports also went down a similar route, benching Benjamín "Adverso" Poblete for LATAM's biggest up-and-coming talent Jesús "Dantedeu5" Larrosa. Despite only joining the team a week before Stage 2 with "only one day of practice" so far, Roberto "Mazino" Rivas and Angelo "Keznit" Mori spoke highly of their new duelist. "He's young. He brings a new air to the team," Mazino comments. "The duelist is the easiest role to integrate into the team, and Dante has good comms." KeznitdeuS agrees, while jokingly referring to Dante as his "little brother", his "baby deus".

With the retirement of Pujan "FNS" Mehta, Ethan "Ethan" Arnold has once again found himself in the IGL role for NRG, but this time, it's different to the team's disastrous 2024 season. "This time it's more real than the last one: last one was a fake role that I went into, and I wasn't fully committed to it," he admits, "so it's been a good experience so far." Both him and Sam "s0m" Oh have also extended huge amounts of praise to Malkolm "bonkar" Rench, who stepped in again after being benched by the organization, for helping the team evolve post-FNS.

Resets needed before the final push to Champions

The Americas teams that did not make Toronto had two whole months of downtime before Stage 2, allowing them an opportunity to reset and improve. While EG's Jaccob "yay" Whiteaker and Christine "Potter" Chi emphasized how hard they've been working, Yay in particular said that he took a small, well-deserved break right after Stage 1 playoffs: "I've been hiking sometimes, and driving the mountains of LA." According to him, the most important thing for EG is to maintain the momentum they generated at the end of Stage 1. "We can't really afford to start slow," Yay declares.

On a similar note, Cloud9 have also been grinding it out, focusing especially on preventing the classic C9 choke in playoffs. To do this, they have been lazer-focused on "working on their foundations", something which Ian "Immi" Harding and Francis "OXY" Hoang emphasized several times in the press conference. "We are making sure that we don't fall back on our bad habits, and falling back on our foundations instead," Immi adds.

I (OXY) have been there so many times that I know what obstacles are going to come. Confidence will bring us all the way through.

Americas' slump and what it would take to to reclaim global dominance

When asked to comment about Americas' relatively weak showing at Toronto, almost all players and coaches still wholeheartedly believe that Americas is still the best region. Since all the Americas teams had the opportunity to practice against the nine teams flying into North America from across the globe during the event, they were able to offer much insight into the power levels of each region.

"Americas is still the best region," Immi comments. "We scrimmed every team in Toronto, but only Paper Rex and Fnatic (the event's finalists) actually impressed me."

As a veteran in the NA FPS scene with almost two decades of professional experience, Potter spoke even more passionately about Americas' overexaggerated downfall: "I still strongly believe that Americas is the strongest, and the most stacked region." Following this, she playfully nudges Yay, saying, "it's gonna have to be us to bring the region back." EG, led by former world champion Potter, are certainly fired up to bring Americas back to the undisputed top spot globally.

Catch the start of VCT Americas Stage 2 on Friday 18 July, for the return of old faces and arrival of new ones as they fight for the remaining Champion spots for the region. For more coverage of Americas and VCT-related news, stay tuned into THESPIKE.GG