Stage 2 of VCT China 2026 ends as it began, with TYLOO TYLOO China Rank #1 splash Moses Christophe Jonathan Scales Zhang Zhen (张震) Erv Shen Zhiwei slowly Kelun Sun (孙科伦) SiuFatBB Pong Gaa Hei (庞加曦) xihe Peng Wenbo (彭文博) on top. TYLOO defeated JD Gaming 3-1 in the Stage 2 playoff grand finals, securing the organization's first VCT regional trophy heading into Champions Shanghai.

This journey has been a long time coming for a team mired in mediocrity, never managing to finish higher than 5th-6th place in any VCT-run tournament until these playoffs. Roster changes, a player moving to assistant coach, and immense firepower allowed this team to overcome another similar underdog story in JD Gaming JD Gaming China Rank #5 jkuro Yong Haochong (杨浩聪) zhe Niu Zhe (牛哲) Yuicaw Huang Yung-chieh (黃湧傑) crownfisher Li Ao (李翱) BerLIN Zhang Bolin (張柏霖) .

JDG takes own map pick of Lotus to start the series

Entering the grand finals through the upper bracket, JDG chose Lotus as the first map of the series. JDG opted for the solo Raze alongside double-Sentinel, while TYLOO ran a more standard double-Duelist.

TYLOO took the first pistol in front of a massive live crowd, but a failed bonus conversion offered a chance for JDG to tie the map early on, which the team did. The mix of fast plays involving Chamber teleports and defensive capability with Vyse allowed JDG to enter the half up 8-4.

JDG earned the second pistol thanks to Yuicaw and BerLIN holding strong down players on a C site post-plant.

Reaching a 10-4 lead, a bonus round win from TYLOO only delayed the inevitable, as crownfisher ended the map at 13-6. An ideal start for the upper bracket team in the finals, taking the map pick and the series lead at 1-0.

TYLOO bounces back with an amazing Split performance

Moving to TYLOO's first map pick, Split began with two near-mirror comps of double-Duelist and double-Controller, both running Omen, Viper, and Skye.

Like map one, TYLOO started the map with the first pistol but a bonus loss. Starting on the defense side, TYLOO fought to a 6-3 lead and a potential lead at the half. Both Duelists from JDG had a rough time on attack, but BerLIN and Yuicaw continued their form from map one to force a tied 6-6 half.

Moving to the attack side, TYLOO were unleashed. Earning the pistol and the bonus, TYLOO now ran away with the second half as SiuFatBB led his team to a 13-7 victory and a tied 1-1 series.

Breeze the closest map of the series as TYLOO runs ahead

Breeze was the third map, and similarly to Split, the teams nearly used the same Harbor comp, with the only difference being a KAY/O pick from TYLOO to complement the open space and sightlines of Breeze.

JDG arguably needed this first pistol more to stop the momentum from map two, but TYLOO continued its first pistol win streak. Yet, TYLOO also continued to lose the bonus round, which gave both jkuro and zhe the chance to pop off on the gun rounds. Both teams fought hard to take rounds, but JDG entered the half with a slight lead at 7-5.

The defensive half for TYLOO couldn't have started stronger, with Scales using KAY/O utility near perfectly while the team took the pistol and bonus. JDG struggled to adapt to the TYLOO defense, and despite threatening to tie the game after 9-9, JDG never did. The best moment to show exactly what the game was like for both teams was this SiuFatBB kill after cancelling his ult.

Add to that splash turning up to conclude the map, Breeze was curtains at 13-10, as TYLOO sat on series and tournament point.

Summit confirms the new regional champions

Map four was the newest map in Valorant, one that plenty of teams are still adapting to, and that showed in the difference in team comps between the two squads. Both teams ran double-Duelist, but we saw four different Duelists across both teams.

TYLOO jumped ahead with a pistol win, and a bonus conversion highlighted by a slowly double kill to end the round. For the first time in the series, a bonus round truly pushed a team comfortably ahead in the half, as TYLOO reached a 6-0 lead before losing its first round. When slowly wasn't cooking JDG alive with his Waylay, splash followed up with his star Phoenix play, leading TYLOO to a 10-2 half.

All TYLOO needed to do to complete this fairytale run was take the pistol and convert the bonus, as the team started the map with. After earning the pistol and winning against the force buys from JDG, Scales shot down the final two, and the time to celebrate began. TYLOO ended Summit 13-2 and the series 3-1, finishing the Stage 2 playoffs at the top of VCT China.

Two different kinds of underdog stories culminated at the Stage 2 playoff grand finals, but the hype around TYLOO from defeating JDG 2-0 at the beginning of the group stages, and then losing to them in the upper semis, paid off in this rematch. Everyone on TYLOO ended the series with a match rating above 1.07, but splash continued his great form by ending the series with a 1.13 rating, 61 kills, and 15 first kills.