KRU Blaze Beat Gentle Mates 3-2 to Win the VALORANT Game Changers Championship in Sao Paulo

KRU Blaze defeated Gentle Mates GC 3-2 in the Grand Final of the VALORANT Game Changers Championship 2026 on Sunday, November 1, at the Riot Games Arena in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The win gave Latin America its first title in the history of the competition.

It was also a first in another way. KRU Blaze are the first champions to win this tournament after dropping into the lower bracket, a route that left them with no room for a single bad series for the rest of the event.

A final that swung map to map

Gentle Mates opened the series on Haven and won it 13-5. KRU answered on Abyss by the same score, 13-5. The third map, Sunset, went to overtime before KRU took it 14-12. Gentle Mates levelled the series again on Split, winning 13-8, and KRU closed the championship on the deciding map, Ascent, 13-8.

Amaro "tok1o" Miranda of Argentina was named Grand Final MVP. The player finished the five map series with 84 kills, the most of any KRU player on the day. After the final, tok1o said: "If I could cut the bracelet into seven, I would do it for each one of my team, because every person deserves to be the MVP of this match."

The KRU Blaze roster in the final was antG (Antonia Garcia), ponix (Isidora Valentina Vasquez Munoz), tok1o (Amaro Miranda), dods (Caue Fernandes) and micaela (Micaela Ferreyra).

The lower bracket road

KRU did not reach the final the easy way. SR Gold beat them 2-0 in the upper bracket semifinals, which sent KRU into the lower bracket with their tournament on the line. From there they beat MIBR GC 2-0 and then beat SR Gold 3-1 in the lower bracket final to reach the Grand Final.

Gentle Mates arrived by the opposite route. They had not lost a series all tournament before the final, and they pushed the deciding series to a fifth map before KRU closed it.

KRU Blaze earned $180,000 for first place from a $500,000 prize pool. The runners-up, Gentle Mates, took $100,000.

A big audience, and a format change ahead

The Grand Final peaked at approximately 289,000 concurrent viewers, according to Esports Charts figures reported by SportsTiger. That peak ranks among the top three editions of the event all time and was up about 26 percent from the 2025 peak.

The Sao Paulo edition was also the last of its kind. It was the final standalone Game Changers Championship. From 2027, the Game Changers world championship will be held alongside VALORANT Champions in Austin, Texas, from September 16 to October 10, 2027, Riot Games has announced. KRU Blaze therefore close the standalone era as its champions, with a title won the hard way, through the lower bracket and a five map final.