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The year is ending, LOUD has won Champions, but it’s not quite over yet as Red Bull presents one last tournament for the season in the Red Bull Home Ground #3. Now bigger than ever, read our in-depth guide to get to know the VALORANT teams from Europe and America duking it out in this one-of-a-kind format this December!
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Rounding out a season of intense competition, the VALORANT Red Bull Home Ground is the year’s last ‘major’ tournament. Home Ground is an official part of the VCT’s off-season tournament line-up, with franchised teams competing all the way from Europe and now, North America. The tournament was launched in January 2021 with its one-of-a-kind ‘Home and Away’ format, which was nothing like the rest of VALORANT’s tournament scene.
BUZZING ABOUT THE RETURN OF RED BULL HOME GROUND 💥 the unique @PlayVALORANT invitational is back In proud partnership with @AGONbyAOC Technology provider @AMDGaming 👏 FINAL act of the 2022 season 🧼 OFFICIAL part of the #VCT Off-Season Tournaments ➡️ https://t.co/Pv1rm29Wqz pic.twitter.com/ptxys1E7vQ — Red Bull Gaming (@redbullgaming) August 4, 2022
BUZZING ABOUT THE RETURN OF RED BULL HOME GROUND 💥 the unique @PlayVALORANT invitational is back
In proud partnership with @AGONbyAOC Technology provider @AMDGaming
👏 FINAL act of the 2022 season 🧼 OFFICIAL part of the #VCT Off-Season Tournaments ➡️ https://t.co/Pv1rm29Wqz pic.twitter.com/ptxys1E7vQ
— Red Bull Gaming (@redbullgaming) August 4, 2022
In Red Bull Home Ground, each team has a map for their ‘home ground’. In the first two matches of a best-of-series, each team’s home ground will be played first. If a team happens to win both maps (‘home’ and ‘away’), they automatically win the series. So, in this case, a team can win a best-of-five series in a 2-0 sweep.
Home Ground’s format is a first within the scene and will be sure to shake up the game’s competitive scene. And with all the changes to the VCT in the upcoming year, Home Ground will be a chance for these teams to show off their all-new rosters.
Home Ground is an official part of VCT’s line-up of off-season tournaments and fills the void in competition between the late VALORANT Champions 2022 and the coming 2023 season. The tournament is the last opportunity for teams to end their year with a bang as they defend their own turf against top international teams.
Therefore, there are going to be a lot of exciting matches to bet on when it comes to the OFF//SEASON tournament, Red Bull Home Ground.
If you are looking to bet on Home Ground, you should be no stranger to moneylines. Moneylines are simple as you just need to choose which team you think will have the upper hand in a match. And as it goes, the underdog has better odds than the match favourite.
However, keep in mind that with Home Ground’s unique format, teams can win after two straight wins in a best-of-five. So, if teams have a good read on their opponent, they can easily win in 2-0 sweeps.
Totals or total betting is the same as over/under betting, where you predict whether a game will go over or under a set metric. In VALORANT, total bets refer to whether the match at hand will go over or under a number of games or if a map will go over or under a set number of rounds.
Here, you have to account for how dominant these teams will be in their respective home grounds. If you believe that a match is between two teams of similar skill levels, it would be better to bet on more maps or rounds played. Ground your judgment by checking stat platforms such as THESPIKE.GG to get a more holistic view on team performances per map.
Handicap bets place ‘handicaps’ (hence the name) on teams to ‘level the playing field.’ Handicap bets are better explained by example as seen in map and round handicaps. But with Home Ground’s one-of-a-kind format, handicaps work a little differently.
With a +1.5 map handicap in a best-of-three series, the team you’re betting on needs to win at least one (1) game for you to claim your winnings. Meanwhile, a -1.5 map handicap means that your chosen team must win with a 2-0 sweep. But due to Home Ground’s unique ruleset, in a best-of-five series, a -1.5 map handicap can still exist due to the fact that 2-0 wins can still happen in Bo5’s.
However, round handicaps still work in the same way. A +4.5 round handicap will only require a team to be behind by four rounds (9-13) won to win your bet. Meanwhile, a -4.5 round handicap works in the opposite way, where the team you’re betting on must have a lead of at least five rounds (13-8) to win your bet.
Propositional or ‘prop’ betting involves itself with betting on events in-game that do not necessarily decide a game’s outcome. Events such as first blood, first to x rounds, overtimes, and the like are but a few examples of prop bets. However, there are prop bets that do involve a team’s performance, such as correct map score and odd or even maps played.
Naturally, prop bets are much riskier than its counterparts, but with that risk, yields higher returns. To predict which player will have the most kills or which team will have an ace takes a lot of research and luck. So should you find these bets up and running, it could be good to try them out.
Odds for the outright winner of the Red Bull Home Ground #3 taken from GG.BET, December 8, 14:00 CET:
Odds for Day 1 of the Red Bull Home Ground #3 taken from GG.BET, December 8, 14:00 CET:
Since the start of VALORANT’s esports scene, Red Bull has been one of the leading partners of the VALORANT Champions Tour. But it was only in 2021 that Red Bull started its own invitational called the Red Bull Home Ground that pioneered a unique tournament format.
Back then, the tournament was only a B-tier event with just European teams competing. In Red Bull Home Ground #1, G2 Esports had the upper hand against Team Liquid to win the first-ever home grounds trophy and a fair share of the £24,000 GBP or $33,000 USD prize pool.
In the follow-up tourney in November of the same year, the Red Bull Home Ground #2 was finally held offline in London, UK. In the Red Bull Gaming Sphere, there were even more teams competing than in the first tournament – all 16 of whom were competing for an even bigger prize pool of $70,000, which bumped up the event to A-Tier. This time, Team Liquid finally redeemed themselves from their loss earlier in the year and beat the then-Champions winners Acend.
Now, the Red Bull Home Ground #3 is gearing up to be the biggest yet since the invitational began last year. With $100,000 down the line and teams from America now joining the mix, Red Bull Home Ground will be one to watch this December.
For the first time since it began, Home Ground by Red Bull or, as it is now known, Red Bull Home Ground #3 will be inviting North American teams to compete against Europe’s best. This should elevate the competition in the tournament alongside the teams that fought for their spot in Home Ground through an arduous bracket in the qualifiers.
Out of the eight competing teams, four are invited from Europe, two from North America, and lastly, one European team and one Turkish team from the qualifiers. As of now, the last two invited teams have yet to be announced by Red Bull.
Group A
Group B
Now in its third run, the VALORANT invitational is run by the iconic energy drink and sponsor, Red Bull. The third edition of the tournament will feature eight teams going head-to-head in the stunning Victoria Warehouse, where they will fight for the lion’s share of the $100,000 prize pool. The year-end tournament is set to take place from December 9 to 11, 2022 in Manchester, United Kingdom.
Red Bull’s Home Ground tournament series follows a unique format. As its name implies, each team picks a map from the map pool as their home ground. In each match, each team’s home grounds are played first. If a team happens to win both home grounds, they instantly win the best-of series.
This means that teams should always be putting their best foot forward because if they lose two maps straight, they lose the match. Take out the reverse sweeps and get ready for 2-0 sweeps or back-and-forth four-to-five game series.
The Red Bull Home Ground #3 will kick off in a best-of-three group stages. The teams will be divided into two groups of four, where the top team from each group immediately advances to the semifinals. The second and third-place teams advance to the quarters, while the team with the lowest standing are eliminated.
Then, comes the single-elimination playoffs, where teams will now be facing off in best-of-fives. At this point, the team that plays their home ground the best while outclassing their opponent at their own map will reign supreme. The playoffs conclude with the Grand Finals, where one team will be crowned champion.
Despite the event taking place in the off-season, it sports a whopping $100,000 USD prize pool. This has been steadily increasing throughout the years, from $32,800 in its first run to $70,000 in its follow-up in November last year. This puts it on the leagues of the VCT 2022: Challengers prize winnings which went from $50,000 to $200,000.
Aside from the cold cash, the winning team gets the satisfaction of ending the year with a win. And in this matchup of Europe versus North America, pride is everything.
For the tournament’s scheduling, Red Bull Home Ground #3 is the icing on the VCT 2022 season as it caps the year off from December 9 to 11, 2022. Throughout the three-day bracket, each team’s proficiency on home and away maps will be tested in high stakes best-of series.
The #RedBullHomeGround groups! Who do you think will come out on top? pic.twitter.com/pMPsG8eQfy — Red Bull Gaming (@redbullgaming) December 3, 2022
The #RedBullHomeGround groups!
Who do you think will come out on top? pic.twitter.com/pMPsG8eQfy
— Red Bull Gaming (@redbullgaming) December 3, 2022
Day 1 sees the best-of-three group stages begin with the top six teams moving forward and the bottom two being eliminated. On the second day, the bottom four out of the top six teams will duke it out in best-of-fives in the quarterfinals. Then lastly, the top four teams will compete on day 3 to see which team has mastered their home ground in the Red Bull Home Ground 2022.
Despite being an ‘off-season tournament with no official bearing,’ teams are still hungry as ever to win the Red Bull Home Ground trophy. Though with all the roster changes that have happened since the season ended, it can be a bit harder to gauge which teams will shine under the neon lights of the Victoria Warehouse.
Given that franchised teams have a much larger chip on their shoulder, with all the resources they have at their disposal, it is obvious that these teams will be the ones to shine the most come game day. Do note, however, that not all of the competing teams have been announced just yet, so our list could change depending on that.
Former champion of Red Bull Home Ground and consistent placer since Day 1, Team Liquid are looking to keep their record going this December. Despite parting ways with star players like ScreaM and Nivera, they are now joined by talented players in nAts and Redgar from Gambit Esports and Sayf from Guild Esports. With these players alongside the long-time duo of soulcas and Jamppi, expectations are very high for this squad coming into their first tournament as a team.
Coming up next, we have, what many would consider, the team to watch in the upcoming 2023 VALORANT pro season – Cloud9. In 2022, C9 were unable to redo their formula to success that led them to a 5th-8th place finish at Champions 2021. These failures would prompt the organization to rebuild around their core of leaf, Xeppaa, and vanity. With this late addition of the one-and-only prodigy yay to their already formidable roster, Cloud9 are now looking to take over the VCT starting with Red Bull Home Ground #3. Alongside him, former Sentinels initiator Zellsis will be joining the squad as they hope to put Cloud9 onto the upper echelon of the VCT.
100 Thieves has come up as an underdog in North American VALORANT, finishing in the bottom 8 last Champions 2022. However, the organisation has decided to stick with their core roster and only slot in XSET’s dependable Cryocells for the upcoming season. XSET came close to taking down the Copenhagen champions, FunPlus Phoenix, in Champions 2022 and that was due in part to the efforts of Cryo. The Jett and Chamber player had the most frags in his team, least deaths, and an impressive 14 first kills in their last series of the tourney. So, we can only expect great things to come out of this new-and-improved 100 Thieves roster in their first-ever Home Grounds.
Lastly, we have Team Heretics, an upcoming team with a few familiar faces in the VCT 2023: EMEA League. Forming the team’s main trio are keloqz, mixwell, and AvovA who all used to play with each other in G2 Esports. Following G2’s failure to qualify for the franchise league, the players moved to Team Heretics along with zeek from Acend and OG’s initiator Boo. Team Heretics have already started competing in the post-season placing 2nd place in the VALORANT India Invitational. There, they narrowly lost in the Grand Finals against the beats of Southeast Asia, Paper Rex. As such, we can expect Team Heretics to be a dark horse in the tournament that can rival the likes of TL and C9.
Sadly, all tickets for Red Bull Home Ground #3 at Victoria Warehouse have already sold out since going live in the past weeks. However, do not fret as there will be livestreams of the entirety of the tournament on Red Bull’s Twitch and YouTube. Fans can also stay tuned to upcoming announcements such as invited teams yet to be revealed and scheduling on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and their official website.
The Red Bull Home Ground has become one of the top tournaments to watch for Western VALORANT in the past year. In its third run, Red Bull Home Ground #3 hopes to surpass its predecessors in intensity, hype, and competitiveness. With teams competing from North America and Europe, Home Ground will be a battleground to see which region will come out victorious with $100,000 to boot.
Follow all the action live come December 9 to 11 and place your bets on who can end the year strong in Red Bull Home Ground #3.
For the first time, North American teams will be joining European teams in Red Bull Home Ground. Teams like 100 Thieves, Team Liquid, Team Vitality, and the like will be competing in Manchester, UK.
Red Bull Home Ground #3 is set to begin on December 9 and will continue until the Grand Finals on December 11, 2022.
In this tournament, teams have a “home ground” map. In the first two games of a series, teams play in their respective home ground. If a team wins the first two maps, they win the series outright.
You can watch Red Bull Home Ground on Twitch and YouTube. For live audiences, the event will be taking place at the Victoria Warehouse.
As consistent as they have been in the past two Home Grounds, Team Liquid is once again the favourite coming into the third run of the Red Bull invitational. But also, be on the lookout for Cloud9 with yay now in their roster.
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