The first match at Champions 2022 between EDG and Paper Rex today lived up to the enormous expectations and anticipation for the worldwide VALORANT debut of EDward Gaming and the area of China.

Esports Charts estimates that the match peaked with at least 760,000 viewers before the end of map 1, which also marked the professional premiere of the map Pearl. This number easily above all previous international VCT events’ first match viewing records. It had more than 786,000 views throughout map two, topping the VCT Masters Copenhagen championship game.

This amount was the result of collaboration between official streams and co-streams on other platforms. Along with the official VALORANT channels on Twitch and YouTube, official Japanese streams and co-streams from artists like tarik, TenZ, and Mixwell also made significant contributions.

During the grand final between FunPlus Phoenix and Paper Rex, the Masters Copenhagen tournament’s top viewership total of 783,985 viewers was reached. The overall viewership for Masters Copenhagen was the lowest of any international VCT event, but this was due to a number of factors, including the early elimination of teams from key viewership markets like Japan and Brazil and the fact that many of the participating teams had already qualified for Champions.

Following the underwhelming outcomes from Copenhagen, the early viewership results at Champions are a positive development. Furthermore, Champions 2022 has other areas planned to compete when the stakes are bigger, which might possibly break more records.