Publisher Riot Games has thought of a few things for the third Valorant Champions Tour 2023. Especially for semi-professionals, the format offers new possibilities
Currently, the Valorant Champions Tour (VCT) is hosting the playoffs of the international leagues. These are Riot’s latest attempt to advance and professionalise eSports in Valorant. Unlike previous years, there are fixed partner teams competing against each other for the crown. In addition, almost all events are “on-LAN”, which offers a similar character to that of the international League of Legends leagues.
VCT: This is how the Valorant Champions Tour has been so far
In the last two years, the VCT has gone through some changes. Unlike now, teams could qualify through Open Qualifiers to the Challengers organised by Riot itself. Here, the top teams dueled in the playoffs for participation in the Masters, which were held in several offline events. While there were three Masters events in 2021, there were only two in 2022.
The VCT finals were eventually marketed under the name Champions and were considered the official world championship. Depending on the number of table points, participation in the Champions was either granted directly or the diversions via the Last Chance Qualifier had to be taken beforehand. The ranking was made up of the accumulated points from all Challengers and Masters competitions.
More professionalism – for everyone!
Apart from the changes in the professional league, there are also many innovations for semi-professional gamblers and female players this year. For one thing, a system has been developed in which 23 smaller regional leagues are divided among the three international territories. Within these “Regional Leagues”, the top challengers are invited to the three Ascension Tournaments in order to play in the international league of the professional scene in the following year.
In addition, there is a more professional organisation at the Gamechangers. This tournament, which is exclusively for female teams, was already held at the end of last year and was very well received by the community. The goal is equality and the promotion of new talent.
With Riot’s 2023 competitive structure, teams will be able to go from the Valorant client in their room to the biggest stage in the world.
There will be 4 major tiers of competition, ranging from in-game competition to worldwide regional leagues and international tournaments. pic.twitter.com/OY4i54kCxy
– VLR.gg (@VLRdotgg) August 16, 2022
First on the schedule is the final of the playoffs of the respective international league. After that, it’s off to Tokyo for the VCT Masters in June for the winners to fight for their place among the champions.
