Famous Content creators Ludwig “Ludwig” Ahgren and Tarik ‘tarik’ Celik recently collaborated for a $50,000 Valorant invitational. They did this while waiting for the official start of Valorant Esports by Riot Games for some teams in NA to enjoy and have fun. In the end, The Guard was the winner of the entire tournament, even bringing down the crowd favorites, Sentinels in the upper bracket and winning against TSM in the grand finals.  Here’s how it went down for the amazing event.

From the get go, The Ludwig x Tarik Invitational was part of the official Riot Games offseason tournament calendar. The tournament’s initial announcement had this goal to bring together the best Valorant teams and biggest content creators for a two-day LAN event.

As stated in the official Valorant page announcement, “The Ludwig x Tarik Invitational will be the first event to kick off the 2023 season, bringing together the best VALORANT teams and the biggest VALORANT content creators in the world. The two day LAN event on January 14 and 15 will feature a tournament to crown the best international pro VALORANT team while additionally hosting creator exhibition matches, featuring the likes of Ludwig, Tarik, and more.”

With four well-known pro teams and two teams made by two popular influencers, the event would surely be successful, especially backed up by Riot officially. During the tournament TSM was quickly brought down to the lower brackets along with T1, but fought hard to make their way to the finals, upsetting the crowd favorite, Sentinels. The Guard however proved to be the better squad as they take down TSM 2-1 with a convincing finish. Besides the main tournament, Offline TV defeated Mogul Moves 2-1 with each match being competitive. Shroud even played in Mogul Moves with Ludwig but ultimately got defeated by Tarik's team.

Ludwig x Tarik Invitational: Format and schedule

The tournament took place on January 14 and 15 onsite in Los Angeles. The tournament was played in a more casual setting, much like Beyond The Summit's events. The tournament held a double-elimination bracket, with all matches being best-of-three's, except for the upper bracket final, which will be done with a single-map. The showmatch of Offline TV and Mogul Moves featured a best-of-three, for the influencers to have a tournament-like experience. The schedule and results of the event are as follows:

Day 1 (January 14)

StageMatchPTETGMT
Upper SemisT1 1-2 The Guard10 AM1 PM6 PM
Upper SemisSentinels 2-0 TSM1 PM4 PM9 PM
Upper FinalThe Guard 16-14 Sentinels4 PM7 PM12 AM
Lower Round 1T1 0-2 TSM5 PM8 PM1 AM

Day 2 (January 15)

StageMatchPTETGMT
Lower FinalSentinels 0-2 TSM10 AM1 PM6 PM
ShowmatchOfflineTV 2-1 Mogul Moves1 PM4 PM9 PM
Grand FinalThe Guard 2-1 TSM4 PM7 PM12 AM

Each team will also get winnings from the event. Here's the breakdown of the prize pool distribution:

PlacementTeamPrize Money (USD)
1The Guard$30,000 
2TSM$15,000
3Sentinels$5,000
4T1

Ludwig x Tarik Invitational: Teams

The Ludwig x Tarik Invitational featured two teams participating in the franchise league of VCT America, Sentinels, and VCT Pacific side, T1. The final two teams consisted of teams invited for the VCT Challengers of NA: The Guard, and TSM.

This was the first time that we see the franchise teams, Sentinels and T1, in action in the off-season. This might be a sneak preview of what's to come for each respective leagues in VCT this year.

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