The HERO ESPORTS Asian Champions League 2025 (ACL 2025) has been running since February, and its VALORANT tournament kicked off earlier today.
As the first teams have taken the stage, Esports Insider has compiled everything you need to know about the Asian Champions League 2025 VALORANT competition to follow the rest of the tournament.
What is the Asian Champions League 2025 VALORANT tournament?
Put together by esports event organiser HERO ESPORTS, the ACL 2025 is taking place in Shanghai, China, from February 15th until June 1st. The multi-game tournament series features a $2m (~£1.5m) combined prize pool, which is disseminated across titles such as League of Legends, Counter-Strike 2 and Street Fighter 6.
The event is also part of a collaboration with the Esports World Cup, with some featured tournaments offering qualification to the Saudi Arabian esports festival for the winner.
The ACL 2025 VALORANT competition will see six Asian-based teams compete for a $160,000 (~£120,000) prize pool. Classified as an A-tier OFF//SEASON event, the tournament results will not impact qualification for any official VCT competitions.
What is the Asian Champions League 2025 VALORANT Format?
The ACL 2025 VALORANT tournament features six teams from the VCT Pacifc and China leagues, promising highly competitive matches. XLG Esports, Bilibili Gaming and Trace Esports were directly invited from VCT China. Meanwhile, Paper Rex, DRX and ZETA DIVISION hail from the Pacific region.
Teams are placed in a single-elimination King of the Hill Knockout bracket depending on their performance in VCT Stage 1 and the results of seeding matches. As the two lowest-placing teams, Trace Esports and ZETA must start from Round 1 in the bracket.
However, Bilibili and DRX may fight for their Knockouts seeding in the Quarterfinals Seed Decider. The loser has to face Trace in Round 2 after it eliminated ZETA DIVISION earlier today, while the winner directly advances to the Quarterfinals. Similarly, XLG and Paper Rex will compete for a direct seed in the Grand Final. The loser of their Grand Final Seed Decider must first make it through the Semifinals.
All matches are best-of-threes (BO3s) except for the best-of-five (BO5) Grand Final. The final series will also take place at the Jing’an Sports Center instead of the VCT CN Arena, like the remainder of the tournament.
