Fnatic and Team Heretics qualified for the VCT Masters Shanghai after winning their Upper Bracket Semifinal matches against Karmine Corp and FUT Esports, respectively.
The orange organization is back to an international Valorant competition after missing out on the VCT Masters Madrid following their unexpected defeat against Karmine Corp. Curiously enough, the VCT Masters Tokyo champions qualified for Shanghai after redeeming themselves against the French organization.
Despite the final result, Fnatic's start to the series was extremely slow as Karmine Corp built an early 9-3 advantage. However, the orange roster got closer to their opponents after winning their first attacking rounds. With the team only conceding two attacks, Fnatic got a 13-11 win on Breeze despite Karmine Corp's seven-round lead.
Unfortunately for the Kickoff champions, Karmine Corp's 8-4 lead on Bind vanished too as they could only win one of their ten defenses. Therefore, Fnatic became the first EMEA team to qualify for the VCT Masters Shanghai.
Last but not least, Team Heretics defeated FUT Esports to follow Fnatic's footsteps. The series was full of brilliant individual plays, like Dominykas "MiniBoo" Lukaševičius's Ace on Lotus or Mert "Wo0t" Alkan's Classic headshot on Split.
While the Spanish organization had the lead during most of the series, it's worth noting that the VCT Masters Madrid-bound was on the verge of going to the third map after a shaky attacking half on Split. However, three back-to-back rounds saw them pushing the map to overtime after being 9-12 down. Eventually, the team confirmed their spot in Shanghai with a 15-13 win on Split.
Later today, FUT Esports and Karmine Corp will meet in a BO5 series to determine the region's third qualified team for the VCT Masters Shanghai.