Karmine Corp Are EMEA Champions after beating Team Liquid 3-1
By RIB Staff · Aug 31, 2026
Karmine Corp won VCT 2026: EMEA Stage 2 on August 30, defeating Team Liquid 3-1 in the Grand Final to claim the first Valorant Champions Tour trophy in the organization's history. The series, played across Sunset, Ascent, Lotus, and Summit, went to Karmine Corp despite a mid-series response from Liquid, with star duelist dos9 closing as the standout performer of the final. Full match page & stats →
Key facts
Winner: Karmine Corp (3-1 over Team Liquid)
Event: VCT 2026: EMEA Stage 2 — Grand Final, $250,000 prize pool
Date: August 30, 2026
Maps: Sunset (KC 13-7), Ascent (KC 13-6), Lotus (Liquid 13-7), Summit (KC 13-10)
Series MVP: dos9 (Karmine Corp) — 70/46/23 across 4 maps, series-high 257 combat score
Significance: Karmine Corp's first-ever VCT trophy
How Karmine Corp won it
Karmine Corp came out of the gate in control. On Sunset — their own pick — the map was level at 6-6 before Karmine Corp took over entirely, winning 7 of the last 8 rounds and converting every single round they planted the spike in (6-for-6), while Team Liquid failed to retake a single site all map (0-for-6). Ascent, Team Liquid's own pick, followed the same script against them: tied 4-4 early, then a 9-of-11 closing run for Karmine Corp, built on a lopsided 10-2 edge in full-buy rounds.
Team Liquid finally found their footing on Lotus — Karmine Corp's second pick, which backfired — and it wasn't close once they did: tied 7-7 at one point, Liquid ran out the last 6 rounds in a row behind a huge two-man performance from Kicks (23/8/11) and kamo (23/12/7), both posting the best individual maps of the series for Liquid.
But Karmine Corp shut the door on Summit, Liquid's second pick. Tied 10-10 deep into the map, Karmine Corp won the final 3 rounds to close out the series 3-1 — sealed by LewN, who led all players on the map with a team-high combat score and 7 first kills.
Across all four maps, dos9 was the most consistent player on either roster — 70 kills, 46 deaths, 23 assists, and a series-leading average combat score, anchoring Karmine Corp's two opening-map blowouts before Team Liquid ever found an answer.
The draft: Team Liquid never won their own pick.
Karmine Corp opened the veto by banning Split and Abyss, then took Sunset and Lotus with their two picks; Team Liquid countered with Ascent and Summit. Haven sat unplayed as the decider.
Karmine Corp won on both of the maps Team Liquid chose to bring into the series. Liquid's only map win of the day came on a map their opponent picked. That's the single most damning stat of the grand final — whatever preparation went into Ascent and Summit, it didn't hold up once the round-by-round strat battle actually started.
How Team Liquid let it slip away
Team Liquid weren't blown out — three of the four maps were genuinely tied deep into the second half — which makes the loss more about a handful of specific moments than a talent gap.
Summit was lost by the smallest possible margin. Tied 10-10, Liquid dropped the final 3 rounds in a row to close out the series. A single retake or clutch there sends the series to a fifth map on Haven instead of ending it.
They won both pistols on Ascent and still lost 13-6. Liquid took both round-1 and round-13 pistols on their own map pick, but converted almost nothing else — Karmine Corp still won 9 of the last 11 rounds. Winning the opening gun-round advantage twice and still losing that badly points to a round-to-round execution problem, not a draft or economy one.
Retakes were a recurring weak point. Liquid converted just 2 of 9 defensive retakes on Summit and 0 of 2 on Ascent — on both losses, once Karmine Corp got the spike down, Liquid essentially couldn't win it back.
Lotus shows what Liquid look like at their best — Kicks and kamo both went off in the same map (23 kills each) and Liquid ran the table. On the three maps they lost, that double-peak never happened — Karmine Corp had three separate players (dos9, N4RRATE, LewN) each post a best-of-series map, while Liquid's damage stayed concentrated in the same two names.
The read: Team Liquid have the individual pieces to beat Karmine Corp — they proved it on Lotus — but need more than two players producing at once, and a cleaner retake execution, to convert a tied map into a won one.
Up next
With the trophy secured, Karmine Corp punch their ticket to Champions for the first time in the organization's history. Team Liquid, meanwhile, head back for a second consecutive Champions appearance, this time in Shanghai next month
Image credit: Karmine Corp / X
