The VALORANT Champions Tour (VCT) EMEA Challengers will welcome back 2021 VALORANT Champions runners-up Gambit to the stage—just under a different, and neutral, name. The development comes amid the continued conflict in Ukraine and Russia. As a Russian team, fans were wondering whether Gambit could still compete in VCT. With the org's decision to allow the players to compete independently, in-game leader Redgar also revealed they have decided to take part under the name “M3C”.

Several esports tournaments have taken action in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine on February 24. Besides fundraisers for humanitarian aid and companies stopping operations in Russia, some decisive (and divisive) moves have also been made to ban orgs with evident Russian affiliations, such as the case for Virtus.pro in the ESL.

For VCT, Riot did not sanction nor prevent any team from joining the tournament. Instead, they cancelled week 3 of the EMEA Challengers tourney. In week 4, three of six the scheduled matchups were played. Then they converted week 5 to a so-called “superweek”, doubling the number of broadcast days from the usual three in order to accommodate 10 matches that week including the originally scheduled ones. However, interestingly enough, Gambit did not play in any of the week 4 and week 5 games.

Then on Monday, March 14, 2022, Gambit announced in a statement that it would “empower the players—Redgar, Chronicle, d3ffo, Sheydos, and nAts—to take part in VCT as an independent team.”

“This continues to be a very difficult time for everyone, not least for all us with family and friends living in Ukraine,” the org wrote. “We sincerely wish for tournaments to continue and players to focus on competition and sportsmanship.”

The decision isn't surprising coming from Gambit, considering that the org made a similar move for their Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CSGO) team to allow them to compete in the ESL.

M3C will now probably have to make up for the missed games, but Riot is also yet to release information about the schedule and any other adjustments that may be needed for VCT EMEA Challengers — and possibly even future events and stages — for as long as the conflict continues. We'll keep you posted as developments and updates come in.