VALORANT Game Changers Championship 2026 finals: KRÜ Blaze beat Gentle Mates GC 3–2

As of 2 November 2026. The VALORANT Game Changers Championship in São Paulo is over. KRÜ Blaze are the champions: they beat Gentle Mates GC 3–2 in Sunday’s best-of-five grand final, completing a lower-bracket run after dropping to Shopify Rebellion Gold earlier in the week. Gentle Mates arrived unbeaten from the upper bracket. Riot’s primer still calls this the final standalone Game Changers Championship before the event folds into Valorant Champions in 2027. For the teams and format primer, see our Championship guide; for the pre-finals top-four update, see 30 October.

Liquipedia note: we could not load a confirmed Liquipedia Championship 2026 results page for this check (fetch blocked / page not confirming the final in search hits). Scores below are matched across VLR.gg, THESPIKE.GG and reporting that cites Riot’s results board.

Grand final result – Sunday 1 November

KRÜ Blaze 3–2 Gentle Mates GC (Bo5), Riot Games Arena / Studio, São Paulo.

Map	Gentle Mates GC	KRÜ Blaze
Haven	13	5
Abyss	5	13
Sunset (OT)	12	14
Split	13	8
Ascent	8	13

Veto on VLR: Gentle Mates banned Lotus and Summit, picked Haven then Sunset; KRÜ picked Abyss then Split; Ascent was the decider.

Gentle Mates took map one and forced a fifth after Split. KRÜ answered on Abyss, won Sunset in overtime and closed on Ascent. Series kill leader on VLR’s aggregate board: tok1o (KRÜ Blaze). Pogwire, citing Riot’s results, also names tok1o as tournament MVP — treat that MVP label as reported, not independently verified on a Riot news post we could open for this draft.

Path to the final (finals weekend)

Friday 30 October

• Upper final (Bo3): Gentle Mates GC 2–1 Shopify Rebellion Gold (THESPIKE / Pogwire). Gentle Mates go straight to the grand final still unbeaten on series.
• Lower semi (Bo3): KRÜ Blaze 2–0 MIBR GC — Sunset 13–11, Abyss 13–11 (THESPIKE). MIBR finish fourth.

Saturday 31 October

• Lower final (Bo5): KRÜ Blaze 3–1 Shopify Rebellion Gold — Sunset 6–13, Summit 13–6, Split 13–9, Ascent 17–15 (THESPIKE / Pogwire). Shopify take third on VLR’s standings table.

Key players

Rosters as listed on VLR’s event page for the Championship:

• KRÜ Blaze (Latin America): tok1o, none, antG, ponix, micaela (dods also listed on the team page). tok1o topped the grand-final series kill count on VLR; none had the huge Abyss map in the final per VLR’s map scoreboard.
• Gentle Mates GC (EMEA): Wens, Marti, Nami, berryx, safiaa. Wens and Marti were the standout names through the unbeaten upper-bracket run in our 30 October update; they still posted strong ACS lines on Haven and Split in the final (VLR).
• Shopify Rebellion Gold (North America): alexis, dodonut, Noia, vanitas, glowstick — upper-final and lower-final opponents across the weekend.

Individual awards beyond the reported tok1o MVP are TBC until Riot publishes a full awards write-up we can cite.

Final standings (VLR)

Place	Team
1st	KRÜ Blaze
2nd	Gentle Mates GC
3rd	Shopify Rebellion Gold
4th	MIBR GC
5th–6th	Team Liquid Brazil, SK Nebula
7th–8th	G2 Gozen, FENNEL GC
9th–10th	Nova Esports GC, Gen.G GC

VLR also lists a $500,000 prize pool with first/second at $180,000 / $100,000. Riot’s public “everything you need to know” primer for this event does not spell out that split, so treat the dollar figures as TBC from Riot even though bracket sites agree.

Finals-weekend schedule (when it ran)

Riot’s primer: tournament 22 October – 1 November, no matches 29 October, finals weekend 30 October – 1 November. Match days in São Paulo were listed with doors 14:00 BRT and matches from 15:00 BRT. The grand final on 1 November started at 15:00 BRT after US clocks fell back that morning (Pogwire: 13:00 ET / 10:00 PT; that is 18:00 UK GMT, 19:00 CET, 03:00 KST/JST +1, 05:00 AEDT +1). Second series on multi-match days started after the first ended — exact clock times for those were approximate on the day.

Date	Match	Format	UK (GMT)	CET	ET	PT	BRT
Fri 30 Oct	Upper final + lower semi	Bo3 / Bo3	from 18:00	from 19:00	from 14:00*	from 11:00*	from 15:00
Sat 31 Oct	Lower final	Bo5	from 18:00	from 19:00	from 14:00*	from 11:00*	from 15:00
Sun 1 Nov	Grand final	Bo5	18:00	19:00	13:00	10:00	15:00

*US still on daylight time until the morning of 1 November; Sunday times above are standard time.

How to watch (VODs and Drops)

Official streams and VODs sit on the VALORANT esports channels on Twitch, YouTube and Kick, linked from valorantesports.com, which also carries the bracket. Riot’s primer: Drops need your Riot account linked to Twitch or Kick — including the grand-final spray for 30 minutes watched on 1 November (window may still apply for VOD eligibility; confirm on Riot’s Drops page, status TBC after the broadcast). For a fuller time-zone and stream-link guide written before finals weekend, see how to watch Worlds and Game Changers 2026. More coverage is in our Esports section.