ENVY has secured a spot in the 2026 VALORANT Champions Tour (VCT) by winning yesterday’s VCT Ascension Americas 2025 Grand Final.
The team achieved a 3-1 victory in a rematch against VALORANT Challengers North America Stage 3 champion, TSM.
North American esports organisation ENVY is a veteran of the esports industry, having competed in VALORANT from 2020 to 2022. However, the brand was only re-established earlier this year following its re-acquisition by Mike ‘Hastr0’ Rufail.
The current ENVY roster was brought together by former 100 Thieves Hunter ‘inspire‘ Schliner. Recognising the potential of a group of fellow ranked players and streamers, inspire formed a Premier team, RANKERS, which later qualified for VALORANT Challengers.
Ahead of this year’s Challengers North America season in March, the RANKERS roster was acquired by ENVY. Despite a rough start in Stage 1, ENVY bounced back to win Stage 2 and reach second place in Stage 3.
ENVY’s Ascension to VCT 2026
ENVY kicked off the VCT Ascension Americas Swiss Stage with a 2-0 victory against 9z Team. But after losing 1-2 to TSM, the squad had to defeat Stellae Gaming 2-1 to survive in the tournament.
From thereon, ENVY recorded an impressive Playoffs run. The team took down Team Solid (2-1) and secured revenge against TSM, not only once, but twice. The first recounter was in the Upper Bracket Final (2-1), which saw TSM descend to the lower playoff bracket.
The final showdown yesterday began with two close maps. ENVY claimed the first map, Abyss (13-11), while Sunset went to TSM (13-11). However, ENVY ultimately came out on top with two dominant showings on Bind (13-6) and Ascent (13-5). Moreover, four of its members scored more than 60 kills throughout the series.
The highest-performing player was duelist prodigy, Alex ‘canezerra’ Banyasz, who delivered a kill-death ratio (KDA) of 77/65/26 and 167 average damage per round (ADR).
Unfortunately, both canezerra and Ayan ‘ion2x’ Rastogi won’t join ENVY for VCT next year. The two players are underage and therefore are not eligible to compete in VALORANT’s franchised tier-one circuit.
Canezerra will have to wait until March next year, while ion2x can only commence his VCT career in 2027.
Who Are the Other VCT Ascension Teams?
With all VCT Ascension 2025 tournaments concluded across the globe, six Ascension teams will join VCT’s partner teams for the 2026 season:
- ULF Esports (VCT EMEA)
- BBL PCFIC (VCT EMEA)
- SLT Seongnam (VCT Pacific)
- Nongshim Redforce (VCT Pacific)
- Dragon Ranger Gaming (VCT China)
- ENVY (VCT Americas)
VCT fans will have to wait until January to watch the newcomers perform in the annual Kickoff competitions.
