Riot has announced the details for the Chinese Kickoff event shortly after revealing the dates and formats of the other three regional leagues. The event will run from February 22 to March 2 at the newly-built VCT CN venue as two teams look to snatch away spots at Masters: Madrid.

Format

Like all other regional leagues, three stages of play will thin out the competition. The group stage will see three teams advance straight to playoffs, while three more will qualify for the play-ins stage. One team will emerge victorious and join the other three at playoffs, where – like the group and play-ins stages – a Bo3 format will run all the way up to the grand final, which will be a Bo5.

The winner of the event will not only claim China's first seed at 2024's first Masters event, but will also be rewarded with three Championship points to assist their journey towards Champions.

Groups

In the information video put out by Riot, China's Kickoff will utilize points from the China Evolution Series to seed teams into three groups accordingly. The core of Rare Atom Rare Atom China Rank #5 Guran Zhou Minyan (周铭言) nnono Midnight Wang Yingjie (王英杰) , now in JDG Esports JDG Esports China Rank #7 kklin Zhang Ziling (张梓凌) stew Park Young-chan (박영찬) jkuro Yong Haochong (杨浩聪) zhe Niu Zhe (牛哲) Yuicaw Huang Yung-chieh (黃湧傑) Z1yan Liu Zihan (刘紫涵) , will inherit their previous organization's points.

chinese seeding image To no surprise, EDward Gaming sit atop the regional standings. (Image: Riot Games)

The finalized groups can be seen below:

Group A:

Group B:

Group C:

Schedule

The group stage of Kickoff will take place from February 22 to 26, with the play-ins continuing on February 27. After a short break, the competition will continue on March 1 as the playoffs begin, and the top-performing team of the Chinese League will be crowned the day after, March 2.

Riot have yet to release a schedule for the upcoming matches.

Coverage

VLR.gg will be covering all of the VCT Leagues in our event hub. Additional information (streams, pick'ems, etc.) will be updated upon release.