LOUD beat Team Vitality 3-1 in Shanghai to win VALORANT Champions 2026

ByBNW TEAM

SHANGHAI, 18 October 2026. Brazil’s LOUD are world champions again. They beat Team Vitality of France 3-1 on Sunday in the grand final of VALORANT Champions 2026 and became the first organisation to win the title twice, four years after their first.

The result closed a tournament that had run since 23 September with 16 teams and a prize pool of 2.25 million US dollars. LOUD collect one million. Vitality take 400,000, third-placed 100 Thieves of the United States 250,000 and G2 Esports, fourth, 130,000.

It was also the third time the two finalists had met in Shanghai, and the first two meetings had gone one each. Vitality won 2-0 in the group stage on 30 September. LOUD won the upper bracket final 2-1 on 16 October. Vitality got the rematch by beating 100 Thieves 3-1 in the lower bracket final a day before the final, having lost the first map of that series 5-13.

The final

LOUD were 3-9 down at halftime of the opening map, Summit, and won it 13-11. Vitality took Lotus 13-8, the third day running they had won that map. From there it went LOUD’s way: Sunset 13-5, with Enzo “tkzin” Zimiani scoring 26 kills, and Haven 13-10, where Roberto “erde” Lobos led with 21.

Tkzin finished the series with 77 kills, 66 deaths and 19 assists and the highest combat score of anyone on the server, 259 per round. Erde, LOUD’s Chilean captain and in-game leader, was named the tournament’s most valuable player. He ended the event with 310 kills and 158 assists, and his agents were Omen and Sage, the characters you pick to help your team rather than to pad your own line.

Vitality were not outclassed. Their top three players all scored more kills over the tournament than anyone on LOUD except Lucca “lukxo” Travaioli, and Nikita “Derke” Sirmitev led the whole event with 76 opening kills. They simply lost the two maps that mattered on the day, and the first of them from 9-3 up.

Standings and prize money

  1. LOUD (Brazil), 1,000,000 dollars
  2. Team Vitality (France), 400,000
  3. 100 Thieves (United States), 250,000
  4. G2 Esports, 130,000

5-6. NRG (United States) and T1, 85,000 each

7-8. Paper Rex (Singapore) and Nongshim RedForce (South Korea), 50,000 each

9-12. Team Liquid, Karmine Corp, Global Esports and FUT Esports, 30,000 each

13-16. TYLOO, XLG Esports, EDward Gaming and JD Gaming, 20,000 each

The field had four teams from each of the four regional leagues: the Americas, Europe (with the Middle East and Africa), the Pacific and China. None of the Chinese teams got out of their group, so the home crowd’s own interest in the tournament ended on 2 October, more than two weeks before the final.

What the numbers say

Match data compiled by valolive.gg puts the tournament at 34 series, 86 maps and 1,810 rounds. Four maps went to overtime, the longest being Vitality’s 19-17 win over LOUD on Summit in the group stage. The average round lasted 76 seconds.

How rounds ended tells you what kind of tournament it was. 1,199 of the 1,810 finished with one team eliminated, so two rounds in three were decided by the gunfight rather than the objective. The attacking side won 348 rounds by detonating the spike. Defenders won 199 by defusing it. Only 64 rounds, under four percent, ended with the clock running out.

Players recorded 12,468 kills. Of 35,484 shots that hit an opponent, 9,743 were headshots, a rate of 27.5 percent.

Summit was played 18 times, more than any other map, then Lotus 15, Ascent 13, Sunset 12, Haven and Split 10 each, and Abyss 8. Omen was the most picked agent, in 15.5 percent of all player slots, ahead of Neon (12.9), Chamber (10.3), Fade (10.2) and Sova (7.9).

Individual leaders

Lukxo was the tournament’s top scorer with 355 kills in 18 maps and a kill-to-death ratio of 1.41, the best among players who appeared in at least eight maps. Derke was one kill behind on 353 from 21 maps. Vitality’s Ștefan “Sayonara” Mîtcu and Elias “Jamppi” Olkkonen each had 345.

Measured by combat score per round, again among players with eight or more maps, the leader was not on either finalist. Kamil “kamo” Frąckowiak of Team Liquid averaged 245.3 in a team that went out in the groups. Lukxo (242.9) and 100 Thieves’ Timothée “Timotino” Lavigne Dupont (238.5) were next. The most assists in the event belonged to 100 Thieves’ bang, with 162, four more than erde.

The road there

LOUD went 6-1. After the group stage loss to Vitality they beat Global Esports 2-0 to qualify, then went through the playoffs without losing a series: 2-0 over Paper Rex on 7 October, 2-1 over NRG on the 10th, 2-1 over Vitality on the 16th, and the final.

Vitality went 5-2. They won their group without dropping a series, beat Nongshim RedForce 2-1 and G2 2-0 in the playoffs, lost to LOUD, and then came back from 5-13 down against 100 Thieves to win 3-1 and reach the final.

100 Thieves, who hold first place in the current world rankings, lost their opening playoff series 0-2 to G2, then won three elimination matches in a row, including a 2-1 over G2 in the rematch, before losing to Vitality. G2 themselves beat T1 2-1 in the lower bracket on 11 October, which secured fourth.

The 2027 season opens early next year with the regional kickoff events. Brazil now has two world titles in the game’s six championship seasons.