The Valorant Champions Tour 2021 perhaps just finished, but developer Riot Games already launches a number of changes for the next year. Last week, the studio announced that it represents its competitive calendar, its important Game Changers program expanded — the women offering a room to compete at the highest level — and committed to offering up-and-coming talents more opportunities at the base.
But for the EMEA home of the great finalists of the VCT Champions 2021, AMEND and GAMBIT ESPORTS — things will look slightly different in the next season than in other regions. The four best teams of the year from the year 2021 — AMEND, GAMBIT, TEAM LIQUID and FANATIC — are immediately invited to the VCT in 2022. In the meantime, the last eight remaining places for the route will be forgiven in two open and closed qualifiers for each of the territories within the region — EU, CIS and Turkey. MENA teams can attend each of these qualifiers.
This will form a group of 12 teams that starts in VCT Challengers Stage 1. However, thanks to the introduction of the Valorant regional Leagues (or Vols) for VCT Stage 2, these teams are not carved in stone.
Similar to the European Regional League (Era) system by League of Legends, EMEA will accommodate eight animal-2-leagues that have the opportunity to develop regional talents. These are operated by partner organizations in Spain (where Portuguese and Italian teams are eligible); France & Benelux; Great Britain, Ireland and Scandinavia; Poland & Eastern Europe; Cry; MENA; Turkey; and roof (the Germany, Switzerland and Austria covered).
At the end of Phase 1, the winners of each NRL will connect the two last VCT Challengers teams for the VCT-Victement tournament, with two Challengers Stage 2 places on the line. The teams that do not create, return to the NRL structure or are included in the NRL structure. As such, the next VCT champion could rise very well through the Vols. For Phase 2, the NRL winners qualify instead for the NRL EMEA final, with regional fame at the game.
In a conversation with The PC Player 24 as part of a press conference, Daniel Ring land, Head of Valorant Esports for EMEA says that the team with the development of the Vols has taken a lot of the successes of the LEAGUE OF LEAGUE LEGEND ultimate system, with Spain’s LAP as Great example.
When we look in Spain, the Spanish Era was launched, has a great audience number and brings out many really strong professional players, says Ring land. I think one of the things we liked very much about this system is the way it interacts with the underlying base layer Circuit Torment.
Hoping to standardize that in Europe’s top regional in its own iteration of Valorant, the EMEA will also introduce Valorant Regional Circuits (ARCS) — a range of width sport competitions that amateur teams offer the opportunity to engage. The teams fight around Circuit points, with teams that gather most points at the end of the season fight for the Circuit Champion.
Finally, the Game Changers initiative will be extended to three complete series in January, May and September 2022. The top teams of the EMEA events then qualify for the Global Game Changers-Event, which is currently scheduled for November next year. Similar to the Arcs, Riot also introduces the Game Changers EMEA Academy who is intended to serve teams and friends as a safe place to take part in up to six tournaments a year.
As it looks, there will be no overlaps between the events this year, which, according to Riot it will enable women’s teams, in both Game Changers tournaments in addition to the open qualification games of the NRL and VCT.
With a huge injection of Valorant-E-Sports, which are delivered 2022 to the EMEA — and actually the whole world —, Riot will certainly switch things up for the next year. With a lot of new routes and tournaments, which is now to be kept in mind, Valorant fans in the region will certainly not remain without top-level content next year.
Leave a Reply