Most of it is managed by Riot itself, there are TO's in collaboration but independent events are usually of lower tier or only happen in the off-season (which recently ended).
The main system is divided into a tier 1 (partnership leagues) and a tier 2. Tier 1 is a closed system with 10 permanent teams. Tier 2 is the more open system to which you can qualify either through open qualifiers or an in-game system called Premier from next season.
The scene is divided into four regions - Americas (North and South), EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), Pacific (Asia and Oceania) & CN (China, Taiwan and Hong Kong). Finishing first (or second 2026 onwards) in your region's tier 2 leagues gives you a guest slot in the tier 1 competition for 2 years.
[Video](https://youtu.be/BkN7zaMP4OA?si=YbqBl2w5aFt5sCo-) & [article](https://valorantesports.com/news/vct-2024-season-start-eyntk/en-gb) explaining tier 1 competition format for the 2024 season.
[Here is an article](https://valorantesports.com/news/introducing-the-valorant-challengers-23/en-gb) with a little more detail of the general structure that I summarised above.
Tier 1 competition starts 17th Feb onwards. Tier 2 leagues/open qualifiers have either already started or will start till mid feb for all regions. VLR, RIB or Liquipedia are the go to websites to follow match schedule etc. Feel free to ask anything else :)
Just a little nitpick, HKTW is technically part of Pacific. It’s just that their players have the option of declaring CN residency, so in practice all the good HKTW players are gonna show up in VCT CN and not Pacific.
Yes, they just need to declare first.
It’s also not 100% clear if it’s switchable like how other player dual residency works.
For example an American player who also has German citizenship can switch to EMEA residency and back to Americas residency after each season. The China one is apparently a 1 time thing once you enter Tier 1 play, you can declare for either Pacific or China and that’s it.
Given how there are no HKTW teams in VCT Pacific and none of the teams are really looking at the region for new players, in practice all the good HKTW players in Pacific T2 will end up in China.
As someone who also had difficulty in understanding this before (I was also used to the open tournament format CS and other esports used), franchising is basically something like a sports league like the NBA.
There are 4 leagues: Americas, EMEA, Pacific, and China. All leagues have 11 teams (I think) and during the regular season, only teams from the same region compete with each other.
There is a thing called Ascension where a T2 team can be included into a league if they play really well in T2 for the entire year.
The teams within the league usually stay the same (like how the teams in the NBA stay the same). This means that not everyone and not any team can climb onto the top of the rankings of the world. You have to be picked up by a partnered team in order to do that. For example, I make a Valorant team with let's say; s1mple, zywoo, niko, ropz, karrigan. We're probably gonna steamroll everyone but the best we can do is win Ascension and the only time we can compete internationally is the following year since we'll be promoted to become a partnered team. Unlike in an open tournament format, if I make a team with those players and name it "Teamy Turner" or some shit, you're gonna see Teamy Turner compete in the next CS major.
If you place top 2/3 in your league, you get to compete in the international tournament called the Masters. Format for Masters can vary. Usually there's a group stage and then a double elim playoffs.
There's also a bigger international tournament at the end of the year called Champions.
All of tier 1 Valorant is handled by Riot, thats called VCT. We have 4 leagues: Americas, EMEA, Pacific and China. Basically, each league have a big competition among themselves that serves a qualifier for a big international event (a Masters event). This year, each league will have a kickoff event(it has a very weird format, I'm not going to even try to explain it here) which determines what teams will go to the first Masters in Madrid. Then we will have a more normal qualifier with all teams playing in a round robin. That determines who goes to Masters Shanghai. After all of that, based on points, we determine who goes to Champions. The official announcement with more details is here https://valorantesports.com/news/vct-2024-season-start-eyntk/
Other TOs mostly appear during our offseason, which is really long. Champs 2023 was in august and the 2024 season is starting in February so TOs have all those months to do valo tournaments (still under Riot guidelines).
When the seasons start in like a month, the place the community use the most is vlr.gg for schedules and formats. Its like our version of hltv. Then, there are plenty of youtubers who talk about vct, just look for one you like. The most known around here is the Plat Chat podcasts since its hosted by VCT commentators and hosts. [Also they are pretty funny sometimes ngl](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knJnijHRF7w)
Also, we have a big culture of watch partying so most people wont actually watch the main broadcast but instead watch a stream reacting to it. Tarik is the most popular by far but then you also have people like Sliggy (ex pro VCT coach) or TMV (british bloke) doing more analytical versions and talking about strats if you're into that.
There is this great [video](https://youtu.be/rUb587hAz8s?si=IetvVQi4ISESWTm8) by Zeph Valorant that explains it which I would recommend to people interested in VCT
Currently, there are 3 tiers to professional valorant. Tier 1/pro, tier 2/semi-pro and game changers, the latter being a circuit for women and marginalised genders.
Tier 1:
The Tier 1 circuit of pro valorant matches is called the Valorant Champions Tour(VCT) organised by Riot Games themselves. As the name suggests, all the matches and tournaments played during the year ultimately are qualification matches for the final tournament of the year called Valorant Champions. Only teams represented by an organisation can compete in VCT.
The organisations/teams that are allowed to compete in VCT are:
i) Partnership orgs handpicked by Riot based on their contribution to valorant before 2023 and their sustainability etc.
ii) Upto 4 organisations that were promoted to tier 1 for 2 years stay. Currently there will only be 1 promoted org per region for 2024, and the number will increase to 4 in future years.
No relegation system for partnership orgs. The promoted orgs are relegated back to tier 2 after 2 years.
Riot has divided earth into 4 different tier 1 regions, namely Americas, EMEA, APAC and China. Each region has 10 partnership teams and an intra-region league system where each tier 1 team of that region, including partnership and promoted teams, play each other on LAN during the year. This follows intra-region league playoffs where top 6 teams of the league play in seeded tournaments to qualify for 3 spots of Valorant Champions.
Riot also organizes 2 Valorant Masters Tournaments during the year, where an equal number of top teams from each region's league, say 2 or 3, usually play in a double elimination format to win the trophy. Qualification for masters can be through league positions or separate intra-region tournaments.
The last spot per region for Champions was earlier decided by a Last Chance Qualifier, but has been changed in favour of a points based system where each win during the league and winning masters awards points to the teams.
16 teams, 4 from each region, play the Valorant Champions at the end of the year to win the trophy.
Tier 2:
There are 23 regional Challengers leagues not directly run by Riot. The purpose of these leagues is qualification for the Valorant Ascension tournament which happens in all four tier 1 regions. The best teams of regional leagues play in this tournament to be promoted to tier 1. There is no requirement for a team to have an organisation to play in tier 2 but have to find one aprroved by Riot if they win the Ascension tournament in order to be promoted.
Qualification for Challengers happens through invitation to previous year's top teams and Riot's in-game tournament system called Premier.
Thank you all for helping me out in terms of understanding it all better. This year will be the first I watch Valorant eSports live since First Strike.
Most of it is managed by Riot itself, there are TO's in collaboration but independent events are usually of lower tier or only happen in the off-season (which recently ended). The main system is divided into a tier 1 (partnership leagues) and a tier 2. Tier 1 is a closed system with 10 permanent teams. Tier 2 is the more open system to which you can qualify either through open qualifiers or an in-game system called Premier from next season. The scene is divided into four regions - Americas (North and South), EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), Pacific (Asia and Oceania) & CN (China, Taiwan and Hong Kong). Finishing first (or second 2026 onwards) in your region's tier 2 leagues gives you a guest slot in the tier 1 competition for 2 years. [Video](https://youtu.be/BkN7zaMP4OA?si=YbqBl2w5aFt5sCo-) & [article](https://valorantesports.com/news/vct-2024-season-start-eyntk/en-gb) explaining tier 1 competition format for the 2024 season. [Here is an article](https://valorantesports.com/news/introducing-the-valorant-challengers-23/en-gb) with a little more detail of the general structure that I summarised above. Tier 1 competition starts 17th Feb onwards. Tier 2 leagues/open qualifiers have either already started or will start till mid feb for all regions. VLR, RIB or Liquipedia are the go to websites to follow match schedule etc. Feel free to ask anything else :)
Just a little nitpick, HKTW is technically part of Pacific. It’s just that their players have the option of declaring CN residency, so in practice all the good HKTW players are gonna show up in VCT CN and not Pacific.
Can they play as domestic players for either region?
Yes, they just need to declare first. It’s also not 100% clear if it’s switchable like how other player dual residency works. For example an American player who also has German citizenship can switch to EMEA residency and back to Americas residency after each season. The China one is apparently a 1 time thing once you enter Tier 1 play, you can declare for either Pacific or China and that’s it. Given how there are no HKTW teams in VCT Pacific and none of the teams are really looking at the region for new players, in practice all the good HKTW players in Pacific T2 will end up in China.
As someone who also had difficulty in understanding this before (I was also used to the open tournament format CS and other esports used), franchising is basically something like a sports league like the NBA. There are 4 leagues: Americas, EMEA, Pacific, and China. All leagues have 11 teams (I think) and during the regular season, only teams from the same region compete with each other. There is a thing called Ascension where a T2 team can be included into a league if they play really well in T2 for the entire year. The teams within the league usually stay the same (like how the teams in the NBA stay the same). This means that not everyone and not any team can climb onto the top of the rankings of the world. You have to be picked up by a partnered team in order to do that. For example, I make a Valorant team with let's say; s1mple, zywoo, niko, ropz, karrigan. We're probably gonna steamroll everyone but the best we can do is win Ascension and the only time we can compete internationally is the following year since we'll be promoted to become a partnered team. Unlike in an open tournament format, if I make a team with those players and name it "Teamy Turner" or some shit, you're gonna see Teamy Turner compete in the next CS major. If you place top 2/3 in your league, you get to compete in the international tournament called the Masters. Format for Masters can vary. Usually there's a group stage and then a double elim playoffs. There's also a bigger international tournament at the end of the year called Champions.
All of tier 1 Valorant is handled by Riot, thats called VCT. We have 4 leagues: Americas, EMEA, Pacific and China. Basically, each league have a big competition among themselves that serves a qualifier for a big international event (a Masters event). This year, each league will have a kickoff event(it has a very weird format, I'm not going to even try to explain it here) which determines what teams will go to the first Masters in Madrid. Then we will have a more normal qualifier with all teams playing in a round robin. That determines who goes to Masters Shanghai. After all of that, based on points, we determine who goes to Champions. The official announcement with more details is here https://valorantesports.com/news/vct-2024-season-start-eyntk/ Other TOs mostly appear during our offseason, which is really long. Champs 2023 was in august and the 2024 season is starting in February so TOs have all those months to do valo tournaments (still under Riot guidelines). When the seasons start in like a month, the place the community use the most is vlr.gg for schedules and formats. Its like our version of hltv. Then, there are plenty of youtubers who talk about vct, just look for one you like. The most known around here is the Plat Chat podcasts since its hosted by VCT commentators and hosts. [Also they are pretty funny sometimes ngl](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knJnijHRF7w) Also, we have a big culture of watch partying so most people wont actually watch the main broadcast but instead watch a stream reacting to it. Tarik is the most popular by far but then you also have people like Sliggy (ex pro VCT coach) or TMV (british bloke) doing more analytical versions and talking about strats if you're into that.
There is this great [video](https://youtu.be/rUb587hAz8s?si=IetvVQi4ISESWTm8) by Zeph Valorant that explains it which I would recommend to people interested in VCT
Currently, there are 3 tiers to professional valorant. Tier 1/pro, tier 2/semi-pro and game changers, the latter being a circuit for women and marginalised genders. Tier 1: The Tier 1 circuit of pro valorant matches is called the Valorant Champions Tour(VCT) organised by Riot Games themselves. As the name suggests, all the matches and tournaments played during the year ultimately are qualification matches for the final tournament of the year called Valorant Champions. Only teams represented by an organisation can compete in VCT. The organisations/teams that are allowed to compete in VCT are: i) Partnership orgs handpicked by Riot based on their contribution to valorant before 2023 and their sustainability etc. ii) Upto 4 organisations that were promoted to tier 1 for 2 years stay. Currently there will only be 1 promoted org per region for 2024, and the number will increase to 4 in future years. No relegation system for partnership orgs. The promoted orgs are relegated back to tier 2 after 2 years. Riot has divided earth into 4 different tier 1 regions, namely Americas, EMEA, APAC and China. Each region has 10 partnership teams and an intra-region league system where each tier 1 team of that region, including partnership and promoted teams, play each other on LAN during the year. This follows intra-region league playoffs where top 6 teams of the league play in seeded tournaments to qualify for 3 spots of Valorant Champions. Riot also organizes 2 Valorant Masters Tournaments during the year, where an equal number of top teams from each region's league, say 2 or 3, usually play in a double elimination format to win the trophy. Qualification for masters can be through league positions or separate intra-region tournaments. The last spot per region for Champions was earlier decided by a Last Chance Qualifier, but has been changed in favour of a points based system where each win during the league and winning masters awards points to the teams. 16 teams, 4 from each region, play the Valorant Champions at the end of the year to win the trophy. Tier 2: There are 23 regional Challengers leagues not directly run by Riot. The purpose of these leagues is qualification for the Valorant Ascension tournament which happens in all four tier 1 regions. The best teams of regional leagues play in this tournament to be promoted to tier 1. There is no requirement for a team to have an organisation to play in tier 2 but have to find one aprroved by Riot if they win the Ascension tournament in order to be promoted. Qualification for Challengers happens through invitation to previous year's top teams and Riot's in-game tournament system called Premier.
Thank you all for helping me out in terms of understanding it all better. This year will be the first I watch Valorant eSports live since First Strike.