100 Thieves End Title Drought With Upset VALORANT Win Over NRG at Esports World Cup 2026 in Paris
100 Thieves upset reigning VALORANT World Champions NRG 3-1 at the Esports World Cup 2026 in Paris, capturing the org's first S-Tier international VALORANT title.
Editor's Note ·
- Correction:
- The article states 100 Thieves' FATAL FURY-discipline rival winnings came 'from the discipline's $1 million prize pool.' The cited Esports World Cup recap confirms the $250,000 prize for winner DarkAngel but does not state a total prize pool figure for FATAL FURY: City of the Wolves anywhere in the source. The $1 million total-pool figure is unsourced and has been removed from consideration as a verified fact.
- Clarification:
- The article states the VALORANT grand final was held 'on Monday, July 13,' citing GosuGamers, which does state this verbatim. However, the Esports World Cup's own official Week 1 Champions Recap describes the same match as 'Sunday's Grand Final,' and a separate EWC article announcing the win was published dated July 12, 2026 in the past tense. This is an unresolved conflict between the tournament organizer's own reporting and a third-party outlet's account; readers should treat the exact date of the match as uncertain pending clarification from the Esports World Cup.
Overview
100 Thieves defeated reigning VALORANT World Champions NRG 3-1 in the grand final of the VALORANT competition at the Esports World Cup 2026, held at the Paris Expo Porte de Versailles on Monday, July 13, according to GosuGamers and Arab News. The win marked the organisation’s first S-Tier international tournament win, after six years of competing in the VALORANT scene, and it capped a run that the Esports World Cup described as ending the team’s “major title drought” after upsetting the “World Champions.”
NRG entered the final as the defending champions of VALORANT Champions 2025, having beaten Fnatic 3-2 in the Grand Finals of VALORANT Champions Paris the previous October. Arab News described 100 Thieves’ win as a triumph over “local rivals and reigning champions NRG Esports” in the grand final.
What We Know
The series went the distance across four maps, according to GosuGamers: 100 Thieves won Game 1 on Breeze 13-7 and Game 2 on Sunset 13-6, before NRG closed the gap by taking Game 3 on Haven 13-3. 100 Thieves then closed out the series in overtime on Ascent, finishing the fourth map 14-12.
The win earned 100 Thieves the $600,000 first-place prize and 1,000 Club Championship points, while NRG collected $340,000 as runner-up, out of a total prize pool of $2 million for the VALORANT competition. Matthew “Cryocells” Panganiban was named the tournament’s Sony MVP after a 65 kill/25 assists performance in the finals versus NRG. Accepting the award, Panganiban said: “It feels really good, I still feel like I didn’t perform to my own expectations, but it’s been so long that I haven’t won a trophy yet, and I had many doubts throughout my career, but at the end of the day, never stop believing in yourself and the people around you.”
The victory was also personal for star player Peter “Asuna” Mazuryk, who picked up his first major international trophy after more than five years with 100 Thieves, a club he joined when he was 17.
The VALORANT final was one of three titles decided during the Esports World Cup’s first Championship Weekend in Paris, according to the Esports World Cup’s Week 1 recap. Two days earlier, on Saturday, July 11, Mexico’s Luis Guadalupe Castillo Gomez, known as “DarkAngel,” won the FATAL FURY: City of the Wolves title for club Natus Vincere, defeating Kenta “mi2ha4” Ichihara of Virtus.pro 5-1 in the grand final to collect $250,000 of the discipline’s $1 million prize pool. On Sunday, July 12, Japan’s UNLIMIT — Yulariman, Xtsuvi, and Peace — won the Apex Legends Global Series title in Game 10 after eleven teams reached Match Point, taking home $600,000. After the first week of competition, Natus Vincere and 100 Thieves shared the top of the Club Championship standings with 1,000 points each, ahead of NRG, Team Vision, and Virtus.pro at 750 points apiece.
Paris is hosting the Esports World Cup for the first time this year, as previously reported, after organizers relocated the tournament from its usual home in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, citing regional instability.
What We Don’t Know
Neither GosuGamers nor Arab News detailed 100 Thieves’ path through the bracket beyond the grand final, and the Esports World Cup’s own recap of the match did not name a most-valuable performer for NRG. The full slate of Club Championship standings beyond the top five clubs listed in the Week 1 recap has not been published.
Analysis
The result adds an early data point to the Esports World Cup’s Club Championship format, which rewards clubs across every discipline they compete in rather than crowning a single game’s champion in isolation. With Natus Vincere and 100 Thieves tied atop the standings after Week 1, and NRG’s grand-final loss dropping the reigning VALORANT world champions into the tied-for-second tier alongside Team Vision and Virtus.pro, the Paris edition’s opening weekend has already reshuffled the season-long points race the tournament format is built around.