Valorant Champions Tour

The Valorant Champions Tour (VCT) is a global competitive esports tournament series for the video game Valorant organised by Riot Games, the game's developers. The series runs multiple events throughout each season, culminating in Valorant Champions, the top-level event of the tour. The VCT was announced in 2020, with its inaugural season taking place in 2021.

Valorant Champions Tour
GameValorant
Founded2020
Inaugural season2021
Owner(s)Riot Games
CountryGlobal
Official websitevalorantesports.com

History

2021–2022: Open-qualifiers era

In November 2020, Riot Games announced the first Valorant Champions Tour, a tournament series divided into three tiers: Challengers, Masters, and Champions. Challengers would act as the lowest tier, split into six regions. Teams that advance past Challengers would move on to Masters, where teams would not be divided by regions anymore, and the top 16 teams from Masters would move on to Champions, the final tournament of VCT.[1] In February 2021, they announced the VCT Game Changers, a supplementary tournament initiative for women and marginalized genders.[2]

Riot hired esports infrastructure company Nerd Street Gamers to be the operators and producers for all North American Challengers and Masters events.[3][4] They also hired several third-party companies to broadcast their events, such as Liga de Videojuegos Profesional (LVP) for their Spanish-language broadcasts and LetsPlay.Live for their Oceania broadcasts.[5] The 2021 Champions tournament took place on December 1–12 at the Verti Music Hall in Berlin, Germany, concluding with team Acend defeating Gambit Esports in the grand finals by a score of 3–2.[6][7]

Over 10,000 teams competed in the VCT in 2021. Outside of Champions, VCT saw its highest viewership at the Reykjavik Masters tournament in May, with a peak viewership of 1,085,850. The Champions grand finals match in December reached a peak viewership of 1,089,068, making it the VCT's highest peak viewership.[8][9]

Riot made several changes to the format of VCT for its second iteration. While the overall structure of Challengers, Masters, and Champions remained unchanged, it reduced the number of stages of Challengers and Masters events from three to two. VCT Challengers began on February 11, 2022.[10] The 2022 Champions tournament took place from September 1 to 18 in Istanbul, Turkey.[11]

2023–present: Partnerships era

Riot Games announced a new format starting in 2023.[12] The season will be split into three international regions – Americas, EMEA and Pacific instead of the 7 regions format (NA, EMEA, Asia-Pacific, Korea, Japan, Brazil, and LATAM) used in previous years. Each international region will have own International League that replaces the Challengers to be come the domestic competitions to qualify for Masters and Champions. On September 21, 2022, Riot Games announced the thirty teams that had been selected as part of their new partnership format.[13][14]

Format

International Leagues

As of 2023, 30 teams are selected to be partner teams in International Leagues for five years with 10 teams per region. Teams compete in many sub-region's Challengers events to qualify for "Ascension" events. The Ascension events will have one winner per region, which earns them a two-year promotion into their regions' International League. The promoted teams will have chance to qualify for the global tournaments (Masters and Champions), as well as get benefits provided to other partnered teams. Each year through the Challengers promotion system, the three International Leagues will expand by one team each, until they reach a cap of 14 teams in each region in 2027 (42 teams in total).

Teams in International Leagues

Teams in each International League will play on-LAN in a centralized local: Los Angeles for Americas League, Berlin for EMEA League and Seoul for Pacific League.

As of 2023.[15]

Americas League EMEA League Pacific League
100 Thieves BBL Esports DetonatioN FocusMe
Cloud9 Fnatic DRX
Evil Geniuses FUT Esports Gen.G
Furia Esports Giants Global Esports
KRÜ Esports Karmine Corp Paper Rex
Leviatán KOI Rex Regum Qeon
LOUD Natus Vincere T1
MIBR Team Heretics Talon Esports
NRG Team Liquid Team Secret
Sentinels Team Vitality ZETA DIVISION

Valorant Masters

The Valorant Masters is an annual Valorant international tournament organized by Riot Games in the middle of years since 2021.[16][17] It is the second most important international Valorant tournament aside from the Valorant Champions - the world championship in a year.[18] Teams must finish at top places of their regional league in this stage to qualify for this Masters, and performance in Masters events will earn teams more circuit points than their regional league for advance directly to Champions events or at least qualify for the Last Chance Qualifier.[19][20]

Valorant Champions

The Valorant Champions is the annual professional Valorant world championship tournament hosted by Riot Games and is the culmination of each VCT season. Teams compete for the world champion title of Valorant's esports.

Valorant Game Changers

Valorant Game Changers is a series of domestic competitions for women and other marginalized genders within Valorant esports.[21] Teams finish at top places will qualify for the Valorant Game Changers Championship, a competition that is the world championship event of Game Changers series.

Result

International Leagues' winners
Year Americas League EMEA League Pacific League
2023 TBD TBD TBD

Global tournaments
Year Event Location Final
Champion Score Runner-up
2021 VCT 2021: Stage 2 Masters[lower-alpha 1] Reykjavík Sentinels 3 0 Fnatic
VCT 2021: Stage 3 Masters Berlin Gambit Esports 3 0 Team Envy
VALORANT Champions 2021 Berlin Acend 3 2 Gambit Esports
2022 VCT 2022: Stage 1 Masters Reykjavík OpTic Gaming 3 0 LOUD
VCT 2022: Stage 2 Masters Copenhagen FunPlus Phoenix 3 2 Paper Rex
VALORANT Champions 2022 Istanbul LOUD 3 1 OpTic Gaming
2023 VCT 2023: LOCK//IN[lower-alpha 2] São Paulo Fnatic 3 2 LOUD
VCT 2023: Masters Tokyo[lower-alpha 3] - -
VALORANT Champions 2023 Los Angeles - -

Teams won titles

  *   Team or organization no longer participates in Valorant esports.

  *   Team not currently partnered and competing in sub-regional Challengers or third-party competition.

Team Total Champions Masters
LOUD 1 1 0
Acend[lower-alpha 4] 1 1 0
Fnatic 1 0 1
FunPlus Phoenix[lower-alpha 5] 1 0 1
Gambit Esports 1 0 1
OpTic Gaming 1 0 1
Sentinels 1 0 1

Regions' titles
Region Total Champions Masters
EMEA 4 1 3
Americas 3 1 2
Pacific 0 0 0

Valorant Game Changers Championship
Year Location Final
Champion Score Runner-up
2022 Berlin G2 Gozen 3 2 Shopify Rebellion GC
2023 São Paulo

Notes
  1. Riot Games did not host an international Masters event for 2021 Stage 1 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, each region had its domestic Stage 1 Masters.
  2. To celebrate the new franchise system, Riot Games replaced the first split of International Leagues with a season's kick-off event called "VCT LOCK//IN" for all 30 partner teams. The winning team of this event will be regarded to have won a Masters title.
  3. Although Tokyo is used in marketing material by Riot Games, the event will be held in neighboring Chiba.
  4. Acend is competing in VALORANT Challengers East: Surge (sub-region Eastern Europe of EMEA) currently.
  5. FunPlus Phoenix is competing in China currently. Formerly competed in CIS (sub-region) and EMEA.

References
  1. Webster, Andrew (November 24, 2020). "Valorant Champions Tour is a global season-long esports competition for 2021". The Verge. Retrieved June 12, 2022.
  2. Takahashi, Dean (February 23, 2021). "Valorant's Game Changers tournaments will highlight women and marginalized people". VentureBeat. Retrieved June 12, 2022.
  3. Nicholson, Jonno (January 19, 2021). "Nerd Street Gamers to operate first stage of VALORANT Champions Tour". Esports Insider. Retrieved June 12, 2022.
  4. Nicholson, Jonno (March 10, 2021). "Nerd Street Gamers expands Riot Games partnership". Esports Insider. Retrieved June 12, 2022.
  5. Murray, Trent (February 5, 2021). "LVP to Serve as Official Spanish Language Channel for Valorant Champions Tour". The Esports Observer. Retrieved June 12, 2022.
  6. McLauglin, Declan (November 18, 2021). "How to watch VALORANT Champions". Upcomer. Retrieved June 12, 2022.
  7. Klimentov, Mikhail (December 12, 2021). "Acend wins 'Valorant' world championship, defeating Gambit in Berlin". The Washington Post. Retrieved June 12, 2022.
  8. Klimentov, Mikhail (December 15, 2021). "The 5 big questions facing 'Valorant' esports in 2022". The Washington Post. Retrieved June 12, 2022.
  9. Utama, Kenneth (December 12, 2021). "VALORANT Champions breaks viewership record once again". Upcomer. Retrieved June 12, 2022.
  10. Robertson, Scott (February 7, 2022). "VALORANT Champions Tour 2022 guide: Schedule, results, format, roster moves". Dot Esports. Retrieved June 12, 2022.
  11. Zucker, Coby (May 13, 2022). "Riot Games announces VALORANT Champions 2022 will be in Istanbul". Upcomer. Retrieved June 12, 2022.
  12. Daniels, Tom (August 16, 2022). "VALORANT Champions Tour unveils Challengers ecosystem, introduces annual VCT expansion and promotion system". Esportsinsider. Retrieved September 14, 2022.
  13. "VALORANT Esports". valorantesports.com. Retrieved September 24, 2022.
  14. "VALORANT Champions Tour 2023 Preview". egamersworld.com. Retrieved February 11, 2023.
  15. "2023 VALORANT TEAMS REVEAL". VALORANT Esports. September 21, 2022.
  16. "Announcing the 2021 VALORANT Champions Tour". playvalorant.com. November 24, 2020.
  17. "VCT STAGE 2 MASTERS: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW". playvalorant.com. May 17, 2021.
  18. "Everything you need to know about VCT Reykjavík". Red Bull. May 21, 2021.
  19. "Valorant Champions Tour 2021 - VCT Season Info, Events and Key Dates". Esports.net. Retrieved January 5, 2023.
  20. "2021 VALORANT Champions Tour Overview". playvalorant.com. March 29, 2021.
  21. "VCT GAME CHANGERS". playvalorant.com. February 23, 2021.
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