The first mixed-gender tournament in Pacific, Spotlight Series, is set to start next week.
Riot Games has revealed the VCT Pacific edition of the Spotlight Series, a mixed-gender competition scheduled for December 19–22. Four teams will compete for a share of the $50,000 prize pool, with each team required to include at least two Game Changers players. Teams can decide whether their roster will have a majority of male or female players.
Spotlight Series Pacific will feature DRX, Paper Rex, ZETA DIVISION, and Global Esports partnering up with Xipto Esports.
DRX and ZETA DIVISION, both have been fielding Game Changers rosters, are expected to leverage their GC talent to assemble their own mixed-gender teams. DRX Changers, established in 2023, competed in this year’s VALORANT Challengers Japan circuit, securing 3rd place in Split 1 and finishing 5th-6th in Split 2.
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ZETA DIVISION GC, on the other hand, have found greater success in the Japanese circuit, winning every Game Changers Japan tournament since 2023. The team headlined by Suzu “suzu” Sasaki also claimed a runners-up finish in this year’s inaugural Game Changers Pacific in Thailand, falling only to Xipto Esports. On the Global Championship stage in Berlin, the team impressed the international audience with victories over FlyQuest RED and Falcons Vega before being eliminated by eventual finalists MIBR GC to finish 5-6th.
It has been confirmed that ZETA DIVISION will be bringing three academy players to the Spotlight Series Pacific tournament, as announced by the players themselves (HoneyBunny, Lefiedot, KillAA) on Twitter. Kim “SereNa” Sia has also seemingly confirmed her participation with ZETA in the Spotlight Series on Twitter, expressing her excitement with the message, “Thank you for the opportunity! I hope to perform well this time.”
Paper Rex are set to send three of their stars—Jason “f0rsakeN” Susanto, Wang “Jinggg” Jing Jie, and Ilia “something” Petrov—to compete in the Spotlight Series. Joining them will be ex-Team SMG player Abigail “Kohaibi” Kong and Ryona “Tara” Tan, who’s stepping out of retirement one final time to close out the season.
Meanwhile, Global Esports complete the lineup and will join forces with Game Changers Pacific champions, Xipto Esports. The former Team SMG roster has dominated the Pacific circuit this year, remaining undefeated in regional matchups since the start of the season with their Filipino-Indonesian combine. Savva “Kr1stal” Fedorov, Kelly “kellyS” Sedillo, and Federico “Papi” Evangelista will be teaming up with Alexandria “Alexy” Francisco and Odella “enerii” Abraham, as announced by the Indian organization.
The players and team compositions for the Spotlight Series have yet to be announced. The tournament will follow a single round-robin, best-of-three format, with matches scheduled to start at 18:00 GMT+8 each day from December 19-22.
This isn’t the first mixed-gender tournament, as the Spotlight Series has previously been held in the EMEA and Americas regions.
The EMEA edition saw 14 teams compete in Paris last October, with GIANTX claiming victory over G2 Chozen—a new team name created for the Spotlight Series, which combines G2’s VCT Americas roster with G2’s EMEA-based Game Changers roster, Gozen.
In the Americas, the tournament took place on LAN as well at the Riot Games Arena in LA, featuring four teams: G2 Chozen (with a different roster composition from the one in EMEA), MIBR, Cloud9 x Shopify Rebellion, and FlyQuest x LEVIATAN, with G2 emerging as the champions.
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Cover photo courtesy of VALORANT Esports
