The second day of Valorant at the Esports World Cup 2026 is over, with two new groups and four more teams starting their journey towards an international title. With today's results, three of four EMEA teams have won in their starting matches at the EWC.

Here's a quick look at the four games from day two.

Group C

For the second day of the group stage, fans watched the Group C games of Gentle Mates vs. Xi Lai Gaming as well as Nongshim Redforce vs. G2 Esports.

The Gentle Mates and Xi Lai Gaming match featured only one roster change from both teams' last matches in VCT, as Gentle Mates swapped out import GLYPH for a former Gentle Mates player, Proxh . XLG continued the form the team built together at Masters London, running Jett and Phoenix on Breeze to success. NoMan earned two more 3Ks as XLG won map one 13-7, heading into Lotus with the series lead.

Lotus started with utter domination from the side of Gentle Mates, as XLG decided to swap off the triple-Sentinel composition, and that inexperience in the double-Duelist on Lotus was evident. Lysoar prevented the perfect half from M8s with a 1v1 win on round 9, but the half ended 11-1, which was quickly converted to 13-1 in the second half.

That meant Haven would decide it all, and the start couldn't have been more ideal for Gentle Mates. marteen was frying on Phoenix, and the map almost got out of hand for XLG like the previous map. Instead, the game was nearly tied at the half, and Rarga did his best to stop M8s from ending Haven before overtime. Alas, bipo closed map three 13-8, securing the series 2-1 for Gentle Mates.

bipo snipes four down against XLG on Haven.

The other match was between Nongshim Redforce and G2 Esports, who met in another battle of the cross-region Ascension powerhouses. Starting on Breeze, Nongshim opted for a Harbor comp while G2 didn't, and that worked wonders for Nongshim. Dambi was back on Neon, which led to a comfortable 13-5 win for the Masters Santiago champs.

Sunset started great for G2, who decided to play double-Sentinel with leaf on Sage and BABYBAY on Chamber. Ivy hit a sick ace to earn Nongshim its first round win, leading to a scrappy bunch of rounds traded to both teams. G2 entered the half with a small 7-5 lead, but the second half mimicked the start of the map as the Americas team took the map 13-7 and forced map three.

Split was the decider, just like Santiago for these two squads. Nongshim continued to perform well, with Rb hitting a nasty spray transfer to keep Nongshim ahead at the half. History repeated itself, and G2 lost in worse fashion than the previous series against Nongshim. The final map ended 13-6, with Nongshim winning the series 2-1 off the back of a monster performance from Ivy.

Group D

The other two matches of the day were from Group D, between MIBR and Global Esports as well as All Gamers against Team Heretics.

MIBR facing Global Esports was another matchup of teams that remained mostly the same from their last VCT games, but the coaching change of FrosT to Platoon at Global had its debut match. On both Lotus and Haven, the maps began with MIBR domination as soon as the gun rounds came around, with GE struggling to adapt. Lotus was the Verno and zekken show, and Haven was a Verno Sova masterclass, ending with a 23/4/9 statline.

The series ended in a swift 2-0, with 13-2 and 13-3 map scores. Not the best series for a Global Esports team looking to continue improving after making its first international appearance, but a great showing for an MIBR team looking to rebound regionally in Stage 2.

All Gamers playing Team Heretics was one of the most unexpectedly entertaining matches of the event so far, with China once again showing up and playing a close match against an EMEA team at an international. AG in particular are familiar with this, defeating Gentle Mates at Masters Santiago, but Heretics are the previous EWC champions and a three-map series didn't scare them one bit.

Map one, Haven, introduced new AG player Bai as Neon alongside the Phoenix from iamgrq , which caused trouble against the double-Sentinel from Heretics. Despite starting slow, AG turned it around in the second half and nearly earned map one, but lost it 13-11. Next was Ascent, and despite it being Heretics' map choice, it was all AG with a standout performance from Shr1mp in a 13-8 map win.

That meant the series all came down to Lotus, but a close first half from AG was countered by a perfect second half from Heretics. The map ended 13-7 for Heretics, as the team took the series and took a first step to an EWC repeat victory.

RieNs shoots down four to win the series.

Up next

EWC will continue with the following matches: