VCT Stonks after Reyjkavik: Buy NA and KR, sell Brazil and Japan

VALORANT’s first-ever International tournament took place in Reykjavik, Iceland last week, providing the first real peek into how the various regions stack against each other. Throughout the tournament, teams in North America and Korea exceeded expectations; others like Europe “merely” lived up to them; while the likes of Brazil and Japan underperformed.

With the VCT event concluded, the metaphorical VCT stonks prices are in the midst of a serious market adjustment. Here is a quick buyer's guide for the different VALORANT region’s stonks you should be investing in!

Buy — the team is on the rise and worth investing in
Hold - the team performed to expectations
Sell - the team is overvalued now, sell your shares!

NA VALORANT: Buy!

It makes sense to be bullish on NA, after Sentinels won the Masters 2 Championship without dropping a single map, by their brilliant IGL Shahzeb "ShahZaM" Khan, and the incredible chart-topping talent of Tyson “TenZ” Ngo, who has since been confirmed as a permanent member of the squad. Version1 also put up a solid performance, besting Team Liquid, before losing to an up-ticking NUTURN Gaming and then Fnatic.

*Sentinels claim the win for NA (Source: Riot Games)*

Coming into the tournament, NA VALORANT stonks were decently high, but after this tournament, they are shooting to the moon! Now is the time to invest in VCT NA, especially given the fact that TenZ is officially staying with Sentinels on a permanent basis!

EU VALORANT: Hold

EU stonks came into the Iceland LAN really high due to rampant speculation that they would dominate the other regions through strong teamwork and slower, more meticulous playstyle. EU was definitely one of the best, but they didn’t exceed the inflated expectations, per se.

After losing their first match to Sentinels, FNATIC advanced through the losers bracket to earn another shot at Sentinels in the grand finals. While they managed to claim the second place position at the tournament, they also went 0-5 Sentinels across both series, demonstrating the significant gap between the best in NA and best in EU.

*Fnatic pose at VCT Reyjkavik (Source: Riot Games)*

Team Liquid struggled to find wins in Iceland, losing to Version1 in the winner’s bracket and then FNATIC in the loser bracket. This was somewhat surprising considering how Adil "ScreaM" Benrlitom absolutely dominated in regards to statistics. It’s clear both TL and FNATIC are worth their price, but I wouldn’t expect them to climb higher, so I would hold your investments in EU and see what happens in VCT Masters stage 3.

*Team Liquid at VCT Reyjkavik (Source: Riot Games)*

KR VALORANT: Buy!

Coming into the tournament, there were some serious doubts about how well Korea’s NUTURN Gaming would perform. After all, with the exception of Overwatch, the Korean region isn’t known for its dominance in the shooter genre.

In spite of their low valuation coming into VCT Iceland, NUTURN Gaming managed to put on a really impressive performance, eliminating Version1 by straight outsmarting them and eventually being beaten only by the #1 and #2 in the world: Sentinels and then FNATIC.

*#3 team in the world NUTURN Gaming (Source: Riot Games)*

Due to their surprisingly solid 3rd place finish, NG has earned KR a much stronger reputation coming out of the Iceland LAN than they had going into it. Now is the time to invest in the Korean region, since it is now quite obvious that their playstyle and strategies are viable on the world stage and they were hella undervalued before the VCT tournament.

BR VALORANT: Sell!

Brazil had decent stonks coming into the Iceland LAN, partly due to BR’s historical successes in CS:GO. While they were never the favorites to win, many thought that Team Vikings and Sharks Esports had the potential for strong dark horse runs. Unfortunately for BR, that didn’t end up happening, as they struggled to overcome NA, KR, and EU teams alike.

*Team Vikings at VCT Reyjkavik (Source: Riot Games)*

While BR is certainly not bad, their stonks are on a slight downtrend. It makes sense to offload some of your BR VCT shares and see if the region can rally in Masters 3.

SEA VALORANT: Buy!

No one expected much of anything from SEA's X10 Esports, so they were basically valued at penny stonks. While X10 didn’t make a particularly deep run, the Thai team's strong performance led by Patiphan "Patiphan" Chaiwong still upset everyone’s very low expectations, making them a potentially lucrative, if risky, investment. Now is the perfect time to get in on the ground floor of this region’s affordable but upward trending stonks.

*X10 Esports exceeds expectations at VCT Masters 2 (Source: Riot Games)*

Latin America VALORANT: Hold

*KRU Esports at VCT Reyjkavik (Source: Riot Games)*

Latin America performed on par with expectations. They weren’t expected to be a big winner coming into the event. They didn’t win big, but they also didn’t bomb out, with KRU Esports winning their match against Sharks Esports in a 2-0 fashion before being eliminated by TL in the next round. Considering Latin America performed to at least the standard we expected, hold the line on their stonks heading into Masters 3. The Latin American region might surprise us in the months ahead.

Japan VALORANT: Sell!

Coming into the LAN, Crazy Racoons stonks were pretty affordable. But even so, it doesn’t make sense to keep your investments in this region until they show more promise. Crazy Racoon was eliminated without winning a single map against either Version1 or X10 Esports.