LOUD win VALORANT Champions 2026, beating Team Vitality 3-1 in the Shanghai final

LOUD are VALORANT world champions again. The Brazilian organization beat Team Vitality 3-1 in the VALORANT Champions 2026 grand final in Shanghai on Sunday, October 18, and the VCT’s official account announced the result on X at 07:31 ART: “THE 2026 WORLD CHAMPIONS OF VALORANT, @LOUDgg!” As of 18:13 ART on October 18, X showed that post at about 692,000 impressions and 29,400 likes (our read; the counts keep moving). Riot also revealed a new Duelist, Hush, on the same day.

The series, map by map

The scores below are from VLR.gg and Dot Esports, which agree, listed LOUD’s score first:

• Summit: LOUD 13-11
• Lotus: LOUD 8-13 (Vitality won)
• Sunset: LOUD 13-5
• Haven: LOUD 13-10

VLR.gg says LOUD came through the upper bracket, which gave them two map bans; they removed Ascent and Split. Per Field Level Media, it was a rematch of the upper-bracket final, which LOUD won 2-1, and Vitality reached the final by beating 100 Thieves 3-1 in the lower-bracket final.

VLR.gg also reports that LOUD became “the first team to ever win two Champions trophies”, after winning in Istanbul in 2022. That is VLR.gg’s count; we have not found the claim in a Riot post.

The MVP

erde (Roberto Lobos), LOUD’s in-game leader, was named the tournament MVP, according to Dot Esports, VLR.gg and Field Level Media, which identifies him as being from Chile. Dot Esports describes him as an 18-year-old who moved up from Challengers to the VCT this season.

Hush and the October 27 date

Riot’s VALORANT news page lists “RISE AND FALL // Hush Agent Trailer”, dated 06:00 UTC on October 18 (03:00 ART), with the line “New Duelist Agent available in Season 26 // ACT VI”. The page gives no day, and the item links to the trailer on YouTube.

Dexerto reports that Hush is a Duelist from Guangdong, China, and that “she’ll be playable when she joins the roster on October 27”. Dot Esports also puts her release on October 27. We did not find a Riot agent page or patch notes stating that date as of 13:13 ART on October 19, so treat October 27 as press-reported until Riot says so itself. We are not listing her abilities, since we found no Riot agent page to check them against.

What changes in 2027

Dot Esports says this year’s Champions is “the last of its kind” under the old VCT format. Riot’s own October 15 post says 2027 will be tournament-first, with more than 50 tournaments, that partner teams remain “an important part of the ecosystem”, and that Kickoff Qualifiers begin in November 2026.