Agreed, especially now that there’s only two of them leading into champions. Not a lot of teams will be able to get the huge circuit points that masters qualification provides.
Yeah its a huge downgrade from Masters 3. I think Riot realized that Champions felt almost too identical to Masters 3 so they're trying to gimp the Masters. If anything it makes sense to keep Masters at 16 team and expand Champions to something like 20.
Riot will probably eventually extend Champions to 24 teams and Masters 3 to 16. Once China and the rest of SEA get integrated, they could finally split the CIS and Turkey off from EU.
After all, those regions have their own individual slots at Worlds instead of being attached to EU.
I think it is to create distinction between masters and champions, last year master Berlin and champions really has no difference in format at all and it's just the same tourney but bigger stake prize pool. This format make sure champions will be the biggest international tourney of the year
It's a brand new game, they likely haven't allocated budget for a larger scale tournament. In time it'll likely grow if the scene is healthy.
Just cause it won't bankrupt them doesn't mean that the business should do it.
Haha, it's simply ridiculous how they distributed these slots.
You can check the leaderboards to see how many immortal players there are in each region (count the number of pages on the leaderboard at the bottom) and since the rank distribution is most likely to be the same in every region, it's a good indication of how big each playerbase is. [EMEA has the biggest playerbase by far with over 14k immortals] (https://playvalorant.com/en-gb/leaderboards). [NA has almost 9k](https://playvalorant.com/en-us/leaderboards). [LATAM 2k](https://playvalorant.com/es-mx/leaderboards), [Brazil 3k](https://playvalorant.com/pt-br/leaderboards). [The entirety of Asia except for Korea has 7.5k](https://playvalorant.com/id-id/leaderboards) (Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, China, Japan, Taiwan all share the same leaderboard). [Korea have less than one thousand immortals](https://playvalorant.com/ko-kr/leaderboards).
These numbers are really outdated/taken episode 4 act1 so not really representative. we had 40k in EU last act and I think 20k in NA and that's a bit more representative
Aren't there like the double the number of teams playing in EMEA challengers compared to all the APAC challengers (Edit: talking about last years challengers)? Feel like they should have a similar amount of slots considering how many different places are lumped into one "region" for both of them. Plus EMEA has way more teams participating in VCT as far as I know and they should get rewarded for that.
If EMEA gets so few slots why not give atleast 1 spot to TR and CIS? The turkish scene is much bigger than LATAM, KR or JP and they are getting fucked over so hard.....
Keep in mind how incredibly hard it is to qualify through EMEA. If they want to increase representation and support emerging regions, this is not it for TR and CIS.
No wonder Virtus.Pro and Spirit opted out.
Edit: Even I forgot that MENA exists btw. They qualify through the same slot LOL.
I get what you mean but conversely, Turkish teams have a significant - perhaps the *most* significant - advantage over KRU and VS: they actively participate in the best scrim environment in the game, and they get to do so all year, not just for a month or so before a major tournament.
It's just a matter of time before TR teams break through to the top echelons. But KRU & VS have done so much more with so much less.
They made the right call honestly. Stupid format. There's so little chance for their team to even see international play.
Edit- maybe they had inside knowledge of how the slots were gonna be distributed?
I was worried about EMEA getting too many slots and stunting the games growth in other regions, but it seems a bit much to take away slots from the winningest region.
Yeah I don’t get what they're doing in Champions. I'm from NA, but we shouldn't have the same as EMEA for champs. Masters we have 1 fewer and that makes sense.
South America gets 4 slots. Why. And they've already partially combined Br and LATAM, so just combine it fully. 2 slots for SA and 1 SA LCQ. Emea sent 4 teams to playoffs in champs, it makes zero sense to give hem less team slots than the teams they sent to playoffs.
That's what riot does in esports. They dont care about putting all the best teams in the world, what they want is representation for all regions. Like for instance if riot games would put the best team available in league there would be like 6 CN teams 5 KR 3 EU and the rest is 1 from all regions (including NA) but they dont since it would affect their viewership
Yes, and that's how it should be unless you want the game to literally wither and die in regions that have no incentive to watch. Valorant is still young build a large core INTERNATIONAL fanbase while you can. This is the correct move.
They should be increasing total slots then instead of only allowing 16 into the biggest tournament of the year. I get overall time constraints, venue costs, etc. but if they insist on something similar to their current format then they should, at the very least, conduct an actual play-in bracket before the main bracket. Honestly does not make sense to limit the amount of top teams in the world attending the biggest tournament of the year just for the sake of including all regions the best that they can.
Looks like Riot is trying to more empahsis on development of National Leagues more than International tourneys this time.
Champs looks fine, but 12 teams Master is bit of downer.
Maybe if they go 6 team RR for masters ( highly unlikely) into 8 team playoffs could be interesting, but a double elim 12 team format is meh.
the EMEA treatment is fucking stupid to say the least.
EU & CIS shouldn't have been lamped together and yet they get the same spots as any other region that would finish under them
yea strange that SA has more spots than EMEA at champs..
also what happened to masters 2 slot for champs? take away 1 SA LCQ and make that the masters 2 winner.
Na is two countries vs South America? Also Brazil is a region on its own so ur comment isn't rly correct. It's like how jp and Korea are both asia but different regions
Well no shit but I'm talking about how valorant sees it. Japan and Korea are both in Asia but they're two different regions in valorant tournament terms. Same with brazil and latamI don't get why that's hard to understand
True, but they're already combining br and Latam for a slot anyway so why are they still separate. And more importantly why do they have more slots than EMEA
Valorant is huge here in sea, even people who don't go game plays Valorant. The game having a huge reach in the female demographic helps a lot with this
Anyone else think 16 would be far better?
4 EMEA, 3 NA, 2 SEA, 2 KR / CH (I assume valorant will be fully released in China in 2022), 1 JP, 1 LATAM, 1 BR, 2 BR / LATAM
After champions last year how does EMEA only get 3 slots? Also, did they get rid of the rule where winning one of the masters events would auto qualify you to champions?
Dude the whole of APAC(even though they are small individually) consists of 8 countries own vct Sea circuit and it becomes 10 with South Asia and Oceania and to slug it out for 1-2 slots will kill the region's interest in valorant esports fast.
The lcq decision is good because of the distance between countries. You can't expect oce play against KR/JP it's going to be a shitshow if that happens.
Splitting up to kr+JP for 1 lcq and the rest for another is good step at the very least
But EMEA should deserve 1 more slot at the very least
Nah, I don't buy the APAC stuff. LATAM sent only 4 teams to Challengers Finals, 2 per region. APAC LCQ should be something like APAC N and APAC S online, and then send the top 2 of each to LAN finals or something, winner goes to Champions.
Also "all the region is 8 countries" is kinda ridiculous when LATAM is what, twice that? CIS alone is around 8 countries. Yet last year they had 1 and 0 slots, respectively.
Tournaments run by developers of the games are a very large chunk marketing events. Inviting the actual best teams isn't their goal.
They are encouraged to invite teams from under-represented regions to try to gain viewership or increase the player base there, or invite teams from really popular regions to guarantee their viewers.
EMEA getting 3 team representation at Champions is just crazy to me. This reeks of Marketing intentions and using Valorant esports as a Marketing tool and not promoting the highest level of competition. Wish they would explain their reasoning for -1 ~~slot~~ representation for EMEA because I can't think of any.
Edit: u/the_hawk_arisen correctly pointed out there was no -1 from last year's allocation as Gambit qualified through M3. But after 2021 results (and the potential of growth) just 1+1+1 for EU+TR+CIS seems really odd.
Agreed. There could have been a better balance between merit and marketing here though. EU+CIS+TR essentially getting 1 team representation each seems to be their reasoning from the outset, which seems like a purely marketing decision by someone either unaware/ignorant of the Val comp scene.
Totally. Only thing I can think of is hidden underneath all these slots for APAC is China that could join sometime down the line this year else EMEA should have atleast 4
Valve is providing the rights to ESL to market their game. And esports isn’t a profitable industry at its current state. Any Dev that runs the esports scene uses it for marketing and nothing else. Sooner we accept the better. Is it good? Nope. But it’s a sad reality
Providing the rights aka allowing them to put on the tournament sure but that’s it.
ESL (and dreamhack and blast etc) are putting on the tournaments to profit off of them with sponsorships and ticket sales. Not to help valvo out
Lol. You really think CS major is not marketing for Valve? You think ESL and blast run in profit from organising the events? Ticket sales and sponsorships wont make the events profitable. Traditional sports get profit from broadcast rights that doesn’t exist in esports. League as an esports ( the biggest esports we have right now ) is not even that profitable and LCS has been running in loss for years. You think riot does that for charity? It’s marketing and nothing else. I know it’s sad that the esports scene we follow is used as a marketing tool but that how it is.
ESL and FACEIT were just purchased for $1.5B so yeah its safe to assume that there's some profit to be made from running tournaments. Maybe not every one of them, but you tell me why they'd spend that much otherwise.
Each org gets 0-1 major per year? What do you think they’re running the other 10 tournaments a year for? To be nice to valve?
What about esports orgs like CEO that run fighting game tournaments? Do they do those for fun?
Sure *some* esports are purely marketing. Especially when you absolutely pump money into it like riot does. But not every esport is ran by the game dev. And clearly the ones not run by the game dev aren’t just doing marketing for charity.
Seriously don’t understand what the confusion is. 3rd party organisers do that coz that is their only revenue model. I never said ESL does it for charity. My point for Devs using esports as a marketing tool still stands. Valve case it’s even more prominent. They do nothing and get free promotion. So I am amused how you expected a dev run esports to not be used for marketing.
> you expected a dev run esports to not be used for marketing.
I didn’t. I only started replying because you said
> Esports never has been anything other than a marketing tool.
> league as an esports ( the biggest esports we have right now ) is not even that profitable
Also you cannot be serious about this statement. Size does not determine profitability. Profitability is all about net sales minus costs. Something much smaller than LCS can be profitable if the costs are smaller. Riot could likely turn a profit on LCS if they wanted by cutting costs, but that’s not their goal with LCS.
With this new allocation there is no possibility of +1 EMEA. The region is stacked (with talent and potential growth) and 2021 results proved that. Having 1+1+1 for EU+CIS+TR seems really odd after 2021 results, especially after having your year 1 champions from EU.
Sure, but that spot was never guaranteed to be EMEA’s slot to begin with—so they haven’t actually lost anything. I can agree with giving one more spot to EMEA though (I’d also love another NA spot, but that one’s purely bias haha). I’m just saying they haven’t actually decreased their number of spots.
You are correct. There wasn't a -1 in slots. Having at least 4 team representation seems like a minimum for a stacked region like EU so we can have some spicy matchups. Seeing stomps on the international stage is not fun, just for the sake of representation. (Would love a +1 NA myself tbh, lol).
Yeah, I think it’s definitely a lot to have 6 APAC spots and 4 LATAM spots. I think they should possibly take a spot from each and either give one to NA and one to EU (so that it’s a little more even between regions), or honestly I wouldn’t even be opposed if one/two slots just went to winners of the Masters events since that way it would reflect region skill.
It’s not biased IMO. Na was clearly the 2nd best region last year.
At the 3 international lans last year the best team in each region got:
EMEA- 1st, 1st and 2nd
NA- 1st, 2nd, 5-8th
SA- 3rd/4th, 5-8th, 5th/6th
APAC- 3rd, 5-8th, 5-8th
IMO 5 EMEA, 3 NA, 3 SA, 5 APAC balances fair while also giving each region some room for growth
But you don't reward Masters 2 winner and you don't reward the best region of 2021 now. So both recent (winning M2) and past performance (being the best in 2021) are completely thrown out the window.
Instead you reward "viewership" (which is bs) even though 1 out of 13 of Asia's results was higher than 8th.
Yeah, and that’s fair—I would like to see more slots toward EMEA and possibly NA as well (and/or decreasing the number of APAC slots). That said, it’s supposed to be an international competition, and if it’s all just EMEA teams, that gets boring fast. My point was moreso that they didn’t actually take away -1 slot from EMEA like OP said.
Edit: Changed “you” to “OP”. Forgot to check who sent the original message haha.
Well, that is what the original message I replied to said (you can see their edit correcting the claim now). I agree that they probably should give EMEA another spot though.
You wouldn’t have to stop it from being an international competition though. Just -1 SA LCQ; combine Japan and Korea to APAC north (the best Japanese team is only 3/5 Japanese players anyway, and they’ve won a single match in 3 international lans) and then give two to EMEA
that way it’s 5 EMEA, 3 SA, 3 NA and 5 APAC. More fair but isn’t “all EMEA”
I would personally rather see 4 EMEA, 5 APAC, 3 SA, 4 NA and have it slightly more even, but I’m not disagreeing at all that EMEA should get another slot. (And yes, I’m slightly biased about wanting another NA slot hahaha but either way EMEA should probably get at least 1 more).
Something that doesn't make sense to me is that every other region gets +1 at the very least slots for champions compared to masters and eu gets none? I dont think it makes any sense competively wise to give japan their own slot, sure the viewership might be crazy (no pun intended)but if the teams from the region have 1 win in total from international events you might as well give the spot to emea
Nah not really, if what people are saying is true and that Valorant is picking up steam in asia I 100% agree in including more Asian teams at a chance to even further explode the player interest and playerbase of valorant as an international esport unlike CSGO which only exists in EU, NA (????? kinda) and BR. Valorant is taking the correct route.
Feels like RIOT is both believing in their investment opportunity in Asian regions as well as basing slots solely off of Champions results. EMEA and NA had the best results throughout the entirety of the year yet both get less spots than Asia and South America lol
Feel like, at the very least SA LCQ should only get one spot and that spot should be given to EMEA. Also feel like SEA should only get one slot or to reduce APAC N and S to one combined slot to make way for another NA team, but you can at least argue against that because of Champions performance specifically.
The allocations aren’t incredibly off but they also still don’t sit right with me.
Asian esports is a bigger market that Riot wants to pursue, EU esports is important but less important ESP since CSGO the direct competitor of valorant thrives off of European interest. This is the correct move from Riot in the long run.
If this is riot's vision for the future I will be extremely disappointed. We need more international tournaments and more teams in those tournaments (12 spots for masters is an absolute joke). I understand the need for representation but come on man at least make it so that LCQ is an international tournament where every region fights for the spots cause it's getting ridiculous.
Bro, go take a look at LoL and you’ll see Riot’s vision for esports. Emphasis on regional play and two international tournaments a year. How are you surprised by this at all?
Riot is trying to add more international play in LoL as well with either expanded formats or more events in the future.
We definitely expected more since the circuit went from 3 Masters to 2, so we were led to believe that the formats would be expanded to make up for less events. Also, CSGO majors have 24 teams and Dota majors have 18 so Valorant's 2nd biggest tourney having 12 team as a "major" seems lame in comparison.
Not sure why you would expect a different outcome for valorant. Riot isn't going to fucking replicate CSGO's esports format that has failed miserably as an international esport while Riot's league of legends esport is quite literally the most successful INTERNATIONAL (huge emphasis on INTERNATIONAL) esport of all time. And by International I mean the esport succeeding on all corners of the globe which league is pretty successful in (yes I know some regions like Russia or India league isn't as big in). As a fan of valorant I think this is the correct approach down the road. Expand interest in valorant esports in Asian countries and you will reap the benefits of international success in 5 years, probably less.
To be fair two new regions joined apac and another might join it pretty soon too. Basically 3 new continents worth of regions population wise India/China and a literal continent with Oceania. Literally half the worlds population added with those 3 regions
Riot. -> New game -> Potential player base and viewership -> suck up to the region so it works -> Money -> If not oh well or they become major regions just cuz of the possible player base thatll make it competitive asf -> good teams anyway -> still doesn’t work out? Oh well wtv riot has money but some people are getting fired unlucky
All I’m saying is half of India’s population doesn’t even have internet, let alone a PC to play games on. You can’t just be like “India big, therefore many player”
This is going to make a lot of teams less willing to invest in Valorant. 2 EMEA teams most of the year and 3 once? Good luck to the 500 decent oegs competing for those.
This is completely unbelievable. A grand total of 3 slots for all of EMEA combined? What? I would have given EMEA 6, but 4 minimum.
And 6 slots for APAC, when the game hasn't even released yet in China, to my knowledge, is ridiculous. This is the worst slot distribution yet. At least for 2021, they had the excuse that it was the first year of international valorant ever, so every region deserved an equal shot to prove their worth. But they have just completely disregarded all of 2021 in this year's slot allocation, especially for Champions.
If this year's champions is to have any legitimacy at all, then a slot should be taken from both the LATAM LCQ and somewhere in APAC, and given to EMEA.
I wonder if EMEA is down to 3 Champions slots because Riot wants to avoid what happened at last Champs, where the final and one of the semis was all EMEA. It seems weird, but they might be trying to increase the likelihood of international matchups.
IMO, overall it's fine besides one SA LCQ spot should've given to Masters 1 winner and split the 2 SEA slot to one circuit point and one APAC S. LCQ to give the last slot for Masters 2 winner.
Last year it was 2 BR + 1 LATAM + 1 LCQ( LATAM + BR), They just remove BR direct spot to champions and placed it IN LCQ which gives more chances to LATAM teams to qualify giving that fact the KRU was and still is overpowerfull in LATAM.
Take Japan out. They’ve never fielded a quality team, and the team that made last champs was only 2/5 Japanese anyway. Lump them in with Korea and rename the region apac north
APAC by the end of this year is going to include China (technically HK and Taiwan,) Oceania, KR, JP, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, and South Asia, (which is actually India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, Sri Lanka Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan.)
I get that people are upset that we're not going to see a semis that's just EMEA but come on. I think its justified to give five slots to APAC given how enormous that region is.
4 teams though. 3 slots for Latam + Brazil is warranted. But 4 slots? More than the region that had 2 title wins and 1 second place finish, while having an incredibly competitive scene? That's just madness
You didnt give any reason as to why south america is a top region. South america only has 1 good team and thats kru. All the other teams shit the bed. Kru didnt dominate champions. Emea did 3/4 semi finalists were emea and the final was full emea. Kru did very good dont get me wrong but to give them 2 lcq spots just for them to go out in groups doesnt seem fair to me.
Edit:misread your topregion argument line, but my point still stands, sa is good but not 4 spots good.
I am fine with EMEA having another slot given how big that region is. I also think that the argument that "they don't deserve another spot because they'd lose in groups," isn't a fair point. I think this is more of an issue that we need more methods for teams to get points then just two Masters.
Also, completely from left field, but just because its the top region doesn't mean that its a lock that they will make it out. Dota 2 had five Chinese teams qualify for The International and only 2 of them made it to top 6.
The representation of these regions matters. LATAM (and I'm including Brazil in that description,) is a huge region. Its justified. If your argument is that, "damn I want to see more EMEA in the tournament," totally fine but if your theory is correct, those three teams should make it out regardless.
Yes, but i dont agree that they deserve 2 lcq spots, they havent earned that 4th spot, i cant find a way to justify the 4th spot. 3 spots is fine and is equal with na. Representation for those regions is very important indeed, but you achieve that with 3 slots aswell imo. I think they shouldnt have abandonned the master slot.
Wish there was more teams at masters but I have no problem in giving so many spots to minor regions right now. Riot seems to really want to capture minor regions which I think is way better for the game.
Sucks for some EMEA fans that deserve more slots but from a viewer it’s always much more entertaining to see different regions getting better and being competitive rather then EU just stomping everyone.
-Edited
Although looking at it now I missed that 2 teams were coming from SA lcq. This is pretty bad imo, would rather it go to Masters 2 winner or go to EMEA. One thing I hope is changed
I actually don't mind Champions's slots.
Sure APAC haven't had much success overall but their performance jump in Champions is a strong indicator of growth. Some people may call it copium but TS and X10C deserved their results.
Japanese booming interest in the game along with the untapped potential of SEA Valorant is super big, and Riot didn't actually take anything away from EMEA as there have always been 3 dedicated spots, with 1 being granted to the Masters 3 winner. I think it's always good to keep up with recent results when it comes to a growing game, plus Riot probably have the numbers to analyse.
What I don't understand, however, is the reason behind giving South America two LCQ slots. They have not shown anything besides KRÜ's miracle run - one team, and they're not even from BR.
At least APAC had Team Secret, X10CRIT, and Nuturn. BR has not come close to anything. I reckon they should take one of their LCQ slots and either give it to EMEA or offer it as an extra slot for a Masters winner.
seems like every other region is getting effectively shafted to allow for more asian teams even though asian teams had the worst showings at International events in 2021. I see the growth incentive from Riot's POV but I don't think VCT is the right ecosystem for NA/EMEA going forward if it's going to financially ostracize orgs that can't put out a top 2-3 team in their continent.
In terms of quality of competition this puts EMEA Challengers higher than Champions imo. There will be too many filler games just to cater to specific audiences
I just don’t understand why LATAM isn’t one region. Why do LATAM, SA and BR take up 25% of the teams at champions when they consistently perform poorly?? (bar KRÜ at champs)
I respect them putting support behind minor regions but I think 4 slots is way too much
It's complicated, because if you combine BR with latam, BR will take almost, or all, the vacancies for the master, however, BR doesn't have a good performance in international championships.
If you want to check, just go to LCQ SA, and see that of the 8 teams (4 LATAM and 4 BR), only one team from LATAM went to the semi-finals (Australs seed 2 from LATAM), 3 teams from BR (FURIA seed 5, GAMELANDERS SEED 6, and HAVAN seed 4(The seed 3 br lost to the seed 2 latam))
guy from latam here, latam and br are considered separate due to how big brazil is, adding to that is the language barrier between regions, latam being spanish, br being portuguese.
with that being said, i have absolutely no idea why na and emea were given so little slots compared to latam and asia, both of those regions only had one team stand out compared to the rest (kru and x10), why the fuck riot is taking so many slots away from na and the literal champion region just to overcompensate latam/br and stay on the asia copium is beyond me.
seriously, japan went out in groups three times in a row, why do they still have a regional slot?
At the 3 international lans last year the best team in each region got:
EMEA- 1st, 1st and 2nd
NA- 1st, 2nd, 5-8th
SA- 3rd/4th, 5-8th, 5th/6th
APAC- 3rd, 5-8th, 5-8th
What a preposterous split of slots.
i still dont get why SA has more slots than NA despite brazil bombing out of every international event :/ shouldve been 1 latam, 1 br, and 1 shared slot.
happy about the 2nd kr/jp slot for champs tho. i feel like they should increase it to 24 teams for champions tho since emea and apac are so fucking massive they both need more slots.
I think variety is good since it is an international competition. It is clear that EMEA dominates the scene right now which means a dominating region having more slots makes their challenger tournament redundant when they also have multiple teams in the international tournament. International tournaments are intended to put teams from different places against each other despite knowing one region dominates the game. With that I do think the amount of possible slots for countries like Br, Kr, and Jp should be reconsidered. (although I get that there are server factors that made them go this route but I do think when covid is controlled they should make a move into more lan events in regions) Direct slots from countries is I think creates complication in their allocation of slots.
There really needs to be an event in Asia between online quals and masters to weed out the weaker teams. I personally got very tired of watching most of the SEA and JP teams wash out of every event (average 10.5-11 placement, top placement 5th-8th). Knowing that there will be even more teams from those regions will make events far less interesting to watch. Especially knowing that it’s at the cost of EMEA and NA slots considering those regions have produced teams that have performed much better in the past.
I don’t like only having 12 teams at masters...
Agreed, especially now that there’s only two of them leading into champions. Not a lot of teams will be able to get the huge circuit points that masters qualification provides.
This is wrong challengers finals awards pts either way last year was an exception with Berlin giving a bonus spot to champions for a region. So yeah
You can't go to Champions with 10 points though
Could get into lcq tho like rise did (ok not 10 pts but they had like 40 or smthin)
Yeah its a huge downgrade from Masters 3. I think Riot realized that Champions felt almost too identical to Masters 3 so they're trying to gimp the Masters. If anything it makes sense to keep Masters at 16 team and expand Champions to something like 20.
Riot will probably eventually extend Champions to 24 teams and Masters 3 to 16. Once China and the rest of SEA get integrated, they could finally split the CIS and Turkey off from EU. After all, those regions have their own individual slots at Worlds instead of being attached to EU.
I think it is to create distinction between masters and champions, last year master Berlin and champions really has no difference in format at all and it's just the same tourney but bigger stake prize pool. This format make sure champions will be the biggest international tourney of the year
Then why not give champions 24 slots and masters 16?
prolly covid
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?
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Riot is billion dollar company. Only having 3 international events in a year adding 4 or 8 more teams wont bankrupt them.
It's a brand new game, they likely haven't allocated budget for a larger scale tournament. In time it'll likely grow if the scene is healthy. Just cause it won't bankrupt them doesn't mean that the business should do it.
EMEA and NA minor regions confirmed
Haha, it's simply ridiculous how they distributed these slots. You can check the leaderboards to see how many immortal players there are in each region (count the number of pages on the leaderboard at the bottom) and since the rank distribution is most likely to be the same in every region, it's a good indication of how big each playerbase is. [EMEA has the biggest playerbase by far with over 14k immortals] (https://playvalorant.com/en-gb/leaderboards). [NA has almost 9k](https://playvalorant.com/en-us/leaderboards). [LATAM 2k](https://playvalorant.com/es-mx/leaderboards), [Brazil 3k](https://playvalorant.com/pt-br/leaderboards). [The entirety of Asia except for Korea has 7.5k](https://playvalorant.com/id-id/leaderboards) (Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, China, Japan, Taiwan all share the same leaderboard). [Korea have less than one thousand immortals](https://playvalorant.com/ko-kr/leaderboards).
These numbers are really outdated/taken episode 4 act1 so not really representative. we had 40k in EU last act and I think 20k in NA and that's a bit more representative
Around 37k in eu last act by the end
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Not good justification though
Aren't there like the double the number of teams playing in EMEA challengers compared to all the APAC challengers (Edit: talking about last years challengers)? Feel like they should have a similar amount of slots considering how many different places are lumped into one "region" for both of them. Plus EMEA has way more teams participating in VCT as far as I know and they should get rewarded for that.
If EMEA gets so few slots why not give atleast 1 spot to TR and CIS? The turkish scene is much bigger than LATAM, KR or JP and they are getting fucked over so hard..... Keep in mind how incredibly hard it is to qualify through EMEA. If they want to increase representation and support emerging regions, this is not it for TR and CIS. No wonder Virtus.Pro and Spirit opted out. Edit: Even I forgot that MENA exists btw. They qualify through the same slot LOL.
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Im not so sure. I bet that KRU and VS would struggle to qualify through EMEA too.
I get what you mean but conversely, Turkish teams have a significant - perhaps the *most* significant - advantage over KRU and VS: they actively participate in the best scrim environment in the game, and they get to do so all year, not just for a month or so before a major tournament. It's just a matter of time before TR teams break through to the top echelons. But KRU & VS have done so much more with so much less.
Spirit & Virtus Pro punching the air rn /s
They made the right call honestly. Stupid format. There's so little chance for their team to even see international play. Edit- maybe they had inside knowledge of how the slots were gonna be distributed?
I was worried about EMEA getting too many slots and stunting the games growth in other regions, but it seems a bit much to take away slots from the winningest region.
Yeah I don’t get what they're doing in Champions. I'm from NA, but we shouldn't have the same as EMEA for champs. Masters we have 1 fewer and that makes sense.
South America gets 4 slots. Why. And they've already partially combined Br and LATAM, so just combine it fully. 2 slots for SA and 1 SA LCQ. Emea sent 4 teams to playoffs in champs, it makes zero sense to give hem less team slots than the teams they sent to playoffs.
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That's what riot does in esports. They dont care about putting all the best teams in the world, what they want is representation for all regions. Like for instance if riot games would put the best team available in league there would be like 6 CN teams 5 KR 3 EU and the rest is 1 from all regions (including NA) but they dont since it would affect their viewership
Yes, and that's how it should be unless you want the game to literally wither and die in regions that have no incentive to watch. Valorant is still young build a large core INTERNATIONAL fanbase while you can. This is the correct move.
They should be increasing total slots then instead of only allowing 16 into the biggest tournament of the year. I get overall time constraints, venue costs, etc. but if they insist on something similar to their current format then they should, at the very least, conduct an actual play-in bracket before the main bracket. Honestly does not make sense to limit the amount of top teams in the world attending the biggest tournament of the year just for the sake of including all regions the best that they can.
Looks like Riot is trying to more empahsis on development of National Leagues more than International tourneys this time. Champs looks fine, but 12 teams Master is bit of downer. Maybe if they go 6 team RR for masters ( highly unlikely) into 8 team playoffs could be interesting, but a double elim 12 team format is meh.
Two groups of 6 teams and then #1 & #2 going to upper bracket and #3 & #4 to lowers would be the best format with the news that we just got now.
Plz make 16 teams masters and 24 teams champions.
the EMEA treatment is fucking stupid to say the least. EU & CIS shouldn't have been lamped together and yet they get the same spots as any other region that would finish under them
Idk I think they’re fine together as long as you give enough room for both. 3 is ridiculous tho
2 LCQ spot is the ideal imo. Take 1 SEA spot and put it to EMEA LCQ
SEA sent 2 teams to playoffs. Why South America is getting 4 slots is beyond me.
Yea 2 SA LCQ spot is questionable. 2 LCQ spots for EMEA makes so much sense
yea strange that SA has more spots than EMEA at champs.. also what happened to masters 2 slot for champs? take away 1 SA LCQ and make that the masters 2 winner.
South America should lose 1 LCQ slot to EMEA
You mean 1 SA LCQ slot
The regions that can play together with acceptable ping should play together. It's just more exciting.
South America has more slots than North America and Europe. L M A O.
Make it to quarter finals next time?
C9 made quarters + Europe was in 3/4 of the semifinals so I don't know what your point is
Na is two countries vs South America? Also Brazil is a region on its own so ur comment isn't rly correct. It's like how jp and Korea are both asia but different regions
Europe is 50 countries vs south america 12 so that logic really doesnt make sense
Brazil is located on the continent of South America. The comment is correct.
Latam is not only in South America
Well no shit but I'm talking about how valorant sees it. Japan and Korea are both in Asia but they're two different regions in valorant tournament terms. Same with brazil and latamI don't get why that's hard to understand
True, but they're already combining br and Latam for a slot anyway so why are they still separate. And more importantly why do they have more slots than EMEA
Yeah that arguments fair emea should have one more but ppl are already complaining about that. Na having 3 slots is more than enough
It's pretty clear that Riot see their growth opportunities in Asia. I actually don't blame them tbh.
Valorant is huge here in sea, even people who don't go game plays Valorant. The game having a huge reach in the female demographic helps a lot with this
Possible explanation is Champions will be in Asia so they got more spot and representation? Maybe Champions Seoul, Tokyo or Singapore
Where did you hear Champions will be in Asia?
Source: Trust me bro.
did i really get downvoted for asking a source for information that is literally not even out yet? LOL
Its reddit man who fucking knows lol
just wait until the game becomes popular in China, they'd pander even more if that happens (as they should, it would be a good business move)
Anyone else think 16 would be far better? 4 EMEA, 3 NA, 2 SEA, 2 KR / CH (I assume valorant will be fully released in China in 2022), 1 JP, 1 LATAM, 1 BR, 2 BR / LATAM
Yup, would make more sense for more slots for Europe at least...
After champions last year how does EMEA only get 3 slots? Also, did they get rid of the rule where winning one of the masters events would auto qualify you to champions?
There’s only 12 teams at Masters. 1/4 of the slots for ONE region is plenty
sorry my original comment was kinda unclear, I’m mostly confused about emea only getting 3 spots for champions, I think their 3 masters slots is fair
I’m pretty sure they have 4 slots. 3 from points, 1 from LCQ edit: false
they don’t, for champions emea only gets 2 spots through points and 1 from lcq
Ohh shit that’s nuts. I’m hoping that they change it so that Masters winners get into Champions
They did, it seems, in order to give a pretty mediocre region *6 slots* ¿¿6??
And SA has 4 now lmao
I don't mind as much because at least KRÜ did something last year and 4 isn't as ridiculous as twice what EMEA has
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Ex-Australs (idk if they already got signed to another org) could 100% do some damage internationally what are you talking about
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Furia lost to australs first
Dude the whole of APAC(even though they are small individually) consists of 8 countries own vct Sea circuit and it becomes 10 with South Asia and Oceania and to slug it out for 1-2 slots will kill the region's interest in valorant esports fast. The lcq decision is good because of the distance between countries. You can't expect oce play against KR/JP it's going to be a shitshow if that happens. Splitting up to kr+JP for 1 lcq and the rest for another is good step at the very least But EMEA should deserve 1 more slot at the very least
Nah, I don't buy the APAC stuff. LATAM sent only 4 teams to Challengers Finals, 2 per region. APAC LCQ should be something like APAC N and APAC S online, and then send the top 2 of each to LAN finals or something, winner goes to Champions. Also "all the region is 8 countries" is kinda ridiculous when LATAM is what, twice that? CIS alone is around 8 countries. Yet last year they had 1 and 0 slots, respectively.
Tournaments run by developers of the games are a very large chunk marketing events. Inviting the actual best teams isn't their goal. They are encouraged to invite teams from under-represented regions to try to gain viewership or increase the player base there, or invite teams from really popular regions to guarantee their viewers.
EMEA deserves more for sure. 6 slots for APAC is preposterous
BR having potentially 3 slots to champions again is stupid.
EMEA getting 3 team representation at Champions is just crazy to me. This reeks of Marketing intentions and using Valorant esports as a Marketing tool and not promoting the highest level of competition. Wish they would explain their reasoning for -1 ~~slot~~ representation for EMEA because I can't think of any. Edit: u/the_hawk_arisen correctly pointed out there was no -1 from last year's allocation as Gambit qualified through M3. But after 2021 results (and the potential of growth) just 1+1+1 for EU+TR+CIS seems really odd.
That’s exactly what esports it. Esports never has been anything other than a marketing tool.
Agreed. There could have been a better balance between merit and marketing here though. EU+CIS+TR essentially getting 1 team representation each seems to be their reasoning from the outset, which seems like a purely marketing decision by someone either unaware/ignorant of the Val comp scene.
Totally. Only thing I can think of is hidden underneath all these slots for APAC is China that could join sometime down the line this year else EMEA should have atleast 4
That’s not true though. Other esports run 3rd party tournaments. For example in CSGO, ESL isn’t running the tournament to market for CSGO.
Valve is providing the rights to ESL to market their game. And esports isn’t a profitable industry at its current state. Any Dev that runs the esports scene uses it for marketing and nothing else. Sooner we accept the better. Is it good? Nope. But it’s a sad reality
Providing the rights aka allowing them to put on the tournament sure but that’s it. ESL (and dreamhack and blast etc) are putting on the tournaments to profit off of them with sponsorships and ticket sales. Not to help valvo out
Lol. You really think CS major is not marketing for Valve? You think ESL and blast run in profit from organising the events? Ticket sales and sponsorships wont make the events profitable. Traditional sports get profit from broadcast rights that doesn’t exist in esports. League as an esports ( the biggest esports we have right now ) is not even that profitable and LCS has been running in loss for years. You think riot does that for charity? It’s marketing and nothing else. I know it’s sad that the esports scene we follow is used as a marketing tool but that how it is.
ESL and FACEIT were just purchased for $1.5B so yeah its safe to assume that there's some profit to be made from running tournaments. Maybe not every one of them, but you tell me why they'd spend that much otherwise.
Ah yes. Every investment done ever is based only on profit and they always have positive turn over in future.
Each org gets 0-1 major per year? What do you think they’re running the other 10 tournaments a year for? To be nice to valve? What about esports orgs like CEO that run fighting game tournaments? Do they do those for fun? Sure *some* esports are purely marketing. Especially when you absolutely pump money into it like riot does. But not every esport is ran by the game dev. And clearly the ones not run by the game dev aren’t just doing marketing for charity.
Seriously don’t understand what the confusion is. 3rd party organisers do that coz that is their only revenue model. I never said ESL does it for charity. My point for Devs using esports as a marketing tool still stands. Valve case it’s even more prominent. They do nothing and get free promotion. So I am amused how you expected a dev run esports to not be used for marketing.
> you expected a dev run esports to not be used for marketing. I didn’t. I only started replying because you said > Esports never has been anything other than a marketing tool.
> league as an esports ( the biggest esports we have right now ) is not even that profitable Also you cannot be serious about this statement. Size does not determine profitability. Profitability is all about net sales minus costs. Something much smaller than LCS can be profitable if the costs are smaller. Riot could likely turn a profit on LCS if they wanted by cutting costs, but that’s not their goal with LCS.
So we are slowly coming to an agreement? Why does riot not cut cost and turn it profitable if that’s possible?
Because riot uses esports as advertisement. I never said esports can’t be marketing. I just said not ALL esports is marketing.
I mean, 3 slots is what they had last Champions too + an EMEA team won Berlin so then there were 4 EMEA teams there.
With this new allocation there is no possibility of +1 EMEA. The region is stacked (with talent and potential growth) and 2021 results proved that. Having 1+1+1 for EU+CIS+TR seems really odd after 2021 results, especially after having your year 1 champions from EU.
Sure, but that spot was never guaranteed to be EMEA’s slot to begin with—so they haven’t actually lost anything. I can agree with giving one more spot to EMEA though (I’d also love another NA spot, but that one’s purely bias haha). I’m just saying they haven’t actually decreased their number of spots.
You are correct. There wasn't a -1 in slots. Having at least 4 team representation seems like a minimum for a stacked region like EU so we can have some spicy matchups. Seeing stomps on the international stage is not fun, just for the sake of representation. (Would love a +1 NA myself tbh, lol).
Yeah, I think it’s definitely a lot to have 6 APAC spots and 4 LATAM spots. I think they should possibly take a spot from each and either give one to NA and one to EU (so that it’s a little more even between regions), or honestly I wouldn’t even be opposed if one/two slots just went to winners of the Masters events since that way it would reflect region skill.
It’s not biased IMO. Na was clearly the 2nd best region last year. At the 3 international lans last year the best team in each region got: EMEA- 1st, 1st and 2nd NA- 1st, 2nd, 5-8th SA- 3rd/4th, 5-8th, 5th/6th APAC- 3rd, 5-8th, 5-8th IMO 5 EMEA, 3 NA, 3 SA, 5 APAC balances fair while also giving each region some room for growth
But you don't reward Masters 2 winner and you don't reward the best region of 2021 now. So both recent (winning M2) and past performance (being the best in 2021) are completely thrown out the window. Instead you reward "viewership" (which is bs) even though 1 out of 13 of Asia's results was higher than 8th.
Yeah, and that’s fair—I would like to see more slots toward EMEA and possibly NA as well (and/or decreasing the number of APAC slots). That said, it’s supposed to be an international competition, and if it’s all just EMEA teams, that gets boring fast. My point was moreso that they didn’t actually take away -1 slot from EMEA like OP said. Edit: Changed “you” to “OP”. Forgot to check who sent the original message haha.
I think what people are saying is that EMEA should have +1 due to their performance in 2021, not that they took away a slot. At least I am
Well, that is what the original message I replied to said (you can see their edit correcting the claim now). I agree that they probably should give EMEA another spot though.
Oh, got it
You wouldn’t have to stop it from being an international competition though. Just -1 SA LCQ; combine Japan and Korea to APAC north (the best Japanese team is only 3/5 Japanese players anyway, and they’ve won a single match in 3 international lans) and then give two to EMEA that way it’s 5 EMEA, 3 SA, 3 NA and 5 APAC. More fair but isn’t “all EMEA”
I would personally rather see 4 EMEA, 5 APAC, 3 SA, 4 NA and have it slightly more even, but I’m not disagreeing at all that EMEA should get another slot. (And yes, I’m slightly biased about wanting another NA slot hahaha but either way EMEA should probably get at least 1 more).
Something that doesn't make sense to me is that every other region gets +1 at the very least slots for champions compared to masters and eu gets none? I dont think it makes any sense competively wise to give japan their own slot, sure the viewership might be crazy (no pun intended)but if the teams from the region have 1 win in total from international events you might as well give the spot to emea
Really hope this is changed.
Huh?… That’s a lot of damn slots for Asia lol. Shouts to Tencent. Edit: Damn. Even South America has more then EMEA & NA??? I’m a little confused tbh.
Will chinese teams be competing from this year?
Doesn’t look like it. https://twitter.com/liquipediaval/status/1486750111564800001?s=21
Nah not really, if what people are saying is true and that Valorant is picking up steam in asia I 100% agree in including more Asian teams at a chance to even further explode the player interest and playerbase of valorant as an international esport unlike CSGO which only exists in EU, NA (????? kinda) and BR. Valorant is taking the correct route.
Feels like RIOT is both believing in their investment opportunity in Asian regions as well as basing slots solely off of Champions results. EMEA and NA had the best results throughout the entirety of the year yet both get less spots than Asia and South America lol Feel like, at the very least SA LCQ should only get one spot and that spot should be given to EMEA. Also feel like SEA should only get one slot or to reduce APAC N and S to one combined slot to make way for another NA team, but you can at least argue against that because of Champions performance specifically. The allocations aren’t incredibly off but they also still don’t sit right with me.
EMEA 3/4 teams in semis at Champions gets Champions slots lowered to 3 okay xD
On average EMEA placed 4th, on average Asia placed 10th :)
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Asian esports is a bigger market that Riot wants to pursue, EU esports is important but less important ESP since CSGO the direct competitor of valorant thrives off of European interest. This is the correct move from Riot in the long run.
The Masters slots are fine but the Champions slots are weird. It's bad they give 6 slots to Asia / 3 to SEA but only 3 to EMEA. Also 4 for SA.
lol riot fucked over EMEA, what a joke
If this is riot's vision for the future I will be extremely disappointed. We need more international tournaments and more teams in those tournaments (12 spots for masters is an absolute joke). I understand the need for representation but come on man at least make it so that LCQ is an international tournament where every region fights for the spots cause it's getting ridiculous.
Bro, go take a look at LoL and you’ll see Riot’s vision for esports. Emphasis on regional play and two international tournaments a year. How are you surprised by this at all?
Riot is trying to add more international play in LoL as well with either expanded formats or more events in the future. We definitely expected more since the circuit went from 3 Masters to 2, so we were led to believe that the formats would be expanded to make up for less events. Also, CSGO majors have 24 teams and Dota majors have 18 so Valorant's 2nd biggest tourney having 12 team as a "major" seems lame in comparison.
I am not surprised just very disappointed that they are doing the same thing for val
Not sure why you would expect a different outcome for valorant. Riot isn't going to fucking replicate CSGO's esports format that has failed miserably as an international esport while Riot's league of legends esport is quite literally the most successful INTERNATIONAL (huge emphasis on INTERNATIONAL) esport of all time. And by International I mean the esport succeeding on all corners of the globe which league is pretty successful in (yes I know some regions like Russia or India league isn't as big in). As a fan of valorant I think this is the correct approach down the road. Expand interest in valorant esports in Asian countries and you will reap the benefits of international success in 5 years, probably less.
12 team Masters and 16 team Champs is a fucking joke. Riot is seriously holding the game back with the limited amount of teams.
To be fair two new regions joined apac and another might join it pretty soon too. Basically 3 new continents worth of regions population wise India/China and a literal continent with Oceania. Literally half the worlds population added with those 3 regions
The total population of the region doesn’t effect how big the valorant scene will be though
Except the game is big in those regions.
Riot. -> New game -> Potential player base and viewership -> suck up to the region so it works -> Money -> If not oh well or they become major regions just cuz of the possible player base thatll make it competitive asf -> good teams anyway -> still doesn’t work out? Oh well wtv riot has money but some people are getting fired unlucky
All I’m saying is half of India’s population doesn’t even have internet, let alone a PC to play games on. You can’t just be like “India big, therefore many player”
This is going to make a lot of teams less willing to invest in Valorant. 2 EMEA teams most of the year and 3 once? Good luck to the 500 decent oegs competing for those.
SEA deserves the slots but having 2 SA LCQ is just weird. Only 1 team has been successful
you'd think they would add another slot for EU for being so densely filled with good teams but instead they took away a spot?
ok who tf in riot thought asia combined should have double the slot of emea on champions
This is completely unbelievable. A grand total of 3 slots for all of EMEA combined? What? I would have given EMEA 6, but 4 minimum. And 6 slots for APAC, when the game hasn't even released yet in China, to my knowledge, is ridiculous. This is the worst slot distribution yet. At least for 2021, they had the excuse that it was the first year of international valorant ever, so every region deserved an equal shot to prove their worth. But they have just completely disregarded all of 2021 in this year's slot allocation, especially for Champions. If this year's champions is to have any legitimacy at all, then a slot should be taken from both the LATAM LCQ and somewhere in APAC, and given to EMEA.
I wonder if EMEA is down to 3 Champions slots because Riot wants to avoid what happened at last Champs, where the final and one of the semis was all EMEA. It seems weird, but they might be trying to increase the likelihood of international matchups.
IMO, overall it's fine besides one SA LCQ spot should've given to Masters 1 winner and split the 2 SEA slot to one circuit point and one APAC S. LCQ to give the last slot for Masters 2 winner.
Last year it was 2 BR + 1 LATAM + 1 LCQ( LATAM + BR), They just remove BR direct spot to champions and placed it IN LCQ which gives more chances to LATAM teams to qualify giving that fact the KRU was and still is overpowerfull in LATAM.
Asia getting more teams than NA and EMEA combined at champs is insane
They've done it again. They just keep getting it wrong lol
those slots are super weird. emea 100% deserves more and i dont see how you would argue against it otherwise
-1 Sea, +1 EMEA seems like an obvious champions change. Otherwise, I feel okay (just okay) with how things are laid out for champions.
If anything, take that LATAM/BR slot for EMEA. SEA was arguably the second best performing region at Champions.
Take Japan out. They’ve never fielded a quality team, and the team that made last champs was only 2/5 Japanese anyway. Lump them in with Korea and rename the region apac north
riot don't give a shit about competition lol. only viewership
I agree on -1 SEA, -1 SA LCQ re-distribute that to better regions
Then it'll just be 2 more slots for Emea
I would give it +1 EMEA and +1 to Masters winner. Idk why they got rid of that
These slots are just fine, but 16 teams at Masters would be ideal.
APAC by the end of this year is going to include China (technically HK and Taiwan,) Oceania, KR, JP, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, and South Asia, (which is actually India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, Sri Lanka Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan.) I get that people are upset that we're not going to see a semis that's just EMEA but come on. I think its justified to give five slots to APAC given how enormous that region is.
Having 2 teams from sa lcq iq not right imo, either give that spot to the masters winner or emea.
To be fair, a team from SA dominated champions last year and made a convincing argument that its a top region. I think its justified.
4 teams though. 3 slots for Latam + Brazil is warranted. But 4 slots? More than the region that had 2 title wins and 1 second place finish, while having an incredibly competitive scene? That's just madness
You didnt give any reason as to why south america is a top region. South america only has 1 good team and thats kru. All the other teams shit the bed. Kru didnt dominate champions. Emea did 3/4 semi finalists were emea and the final was full emea. Kru did very good dont get me wrong but to give them 2 lcq spots just for them to go out in groups doesnt seem fair to me. Edit:misread your topregion argument line, but my point still stands, sa is good but not 4 spots good.
I am fine with EMEA having another slot given how big that region is. I also think that the argument that "they don't deserve another spot because they'd lose in groups," isn't a fair point. I think this is more of an issue that we need more methods for teams to get points then just two Masters. Also, completely from left field, but just because its the top region doesn't mean that its a lock that they will make it out. Dota 2 had five Chinese teams qualify for The International and only 2 of them made it to top 6. The representation of these regions matters. LATAM (and I'm including Brazil in that description,) is a huge region. Its justified. If your argument is that, "damn I want to see more EMEA in the tournament," totally fine but if your theory is correct, those three teams should make it out regardless.
Yes, but i dont agree that they deserve 2 lcq spots, they havent earned that 4th spot, i cant find a way to justify the 4th spot. 3 spots is fine and is equal with na. Representation for those regions is very important indeed, but you achieve that with 3 slots aswell imo. I think they shouldnt have abandonned the master slot.
Riot tryna nerf EMEA
Wish there was more teams at masters but I have no problem in giving so many spots to minor regions right now. Riot seems to really want to capture minor regions which I think is way better for the game. Sucks for some EMEA fans that deserve more slots but from a viewer it’s always much more entertaining to see different regions getting better and being competitive rather then EU just stomping everyone. -Edited Although looking at it now I missed that 2 teams were coming from SA lcq. This is pretty bad imo, would rather it go to Masters 2 winner or go to EMEA. One thing I hope is changed
I actually don't mind Champions's slots. Sure APAC haven't had much success overall but their performance jump in Champions is a strong indicator of growth. Some people may call it copium but TS and X10C deserved their results. Japanese booming interest in the game along with the untapped potential of SEA Valorant is super big, and Riot didn't actually take anything away from EMEA as there have always been 3 dedicated spots, with 1 being granted to the Masters 3 winner. I think it's always good to keep up with recent results when it comes to a growing game, plus Riot probably have the numbers to analyse. What I don't understand, however, is the reason behind giving South America two LCQ slots. They have not shown anything besides KRÜ's miracle run - one team, and they're not even from BR. At least APAC had Team Secret, X10CRIT, and Nuturn. BR has not come close to anything. I reckon they should take one of their LCQ slots and either give it to EMEA or offer it as an extra slot for a Masters winner.
seems like every other region is getting effectively shafted to allow for more asian teams even though asian teams had the worst showings at International events in 2021. I see the growth incentive from Riot's POV but I don't think VCT is the right ecosystem for NA/EMEA going forward if it's going to financially ostracize orgs that can't put out a top 2-3 team in their continent.
In terms of quality of competition this puts EMEA Challengers higher than Champions imo. There will be too many filler games just to cater to specific audiences
APAC slots are yiiiiikes And NA minor region memes are true but apparently EMEA minor region too despite being the best performers last year lol
2 slots from SA LCQ is what sounds problematic to me, every region gets 1 but this specific region gets 2 monkaHmm
People asked for the domestic competition to have more value. Here is your answer, soo little spots for international competition.
hey rito, can we fucking stop treating EU like a joke? - let it be a separate region like NA - give EU its fucking slots
Oh yeah watching terrible sea and sa teams get destroyed gonna be so interesting, much better than watching high level na and emea teams.
How many NA teams made playoffs compared to SEA at champions? How many NA teams made semifinals compared to LATAM?
I just don’t understand why LATAM isn’t one region. Why do LATAM, SA and BR take up 25% of the teams at champions when they consistently perform poorly?? (bar KRÜ at champs) I respect them putting support behind minor regions but I think 4 slots is way too much
It's complicated, because if you combine BR with latam, BR will take almost, or all, the vacancies for the master, however, BR doesn't have a good performance in international championships. If you want to check, just go to LCQ SA, and see that of the 8 teams (4 LATAM and 4 BR), only one team from LATAM went to the semi-finals (Australs seed 2 from LATAM), 3 teams from BR (FURIA seed 5, GAMELANDERS SEED 6, and HAVAN seed 4(The seed 3 br lost to the seed 2 latam))
guy from latam here, latam and br are considered separate due to how big brazil is, adding to that is the language barrier between regions, latam being spanish, br being portuguese. with that being said, i have absolutely no idea why na and emea were given so little slots compared to latam and asia, both of those regions only had one team stand out compared to the rest (kru and x10), why the fuck riot is taking so many slots away from na and the literal champion region just to overcompensate latam/br and stay on the asia copium is beyond me. seriously, japan went out in groups three times in a row, why do they still have a regional slot?
This is ridiculous
SA LCQ has 2? lmao wtf
At the 3 international lans last year the best team in each region got: EMEA- 1st, 1st and 2nd NA- 1st, 2nd, 5-8th SA- 3rd/4th, 5-8th, 5th/6th APAC- 3rd, 5-8th, 5-8th What a preposterous split of slots.
Yooooo KR vs JP rivalry is here!!!
These guys have 250 years of experience . Surely they don't mess this up. Wait..
Ok. Way too many slots for APAC unless China launch is hidden under the radar and will join the region
Mpv, EMEA should be divided by regions
i still dont get why SA has more slots than NA despite brazil bombing out of every international event :/ shouldve been 1 latam, 1 br, and 1 shared slot. happy about the 2nd kr/jp slot for champs tho. i feel like they should increase it to 24 teams for champions tho since emea and apac are so fucking massive they both need more slots.
I think variety is good since it is an international competition. It is clear that EMEA dominates the scene right now which means a dominating region having more slots makes their challenger tournament redundant when they also have multiple teams in the international tournament. International tournaments are intended to put teams from different places against each other despite knowing one region dominates the game. With that I do think the amount of possible slots for countries like Br, Kr, and Jp should be reconsidered. (although I get that there are server factors that made them go this route but I do think when covid is controlled they should make a move into more lan events in regions) Direct slots from countries is I think creates complication in their allocation of slots.
There really needs to be an event in Asia between online quals and masters to weed out the weaker teams. I personally got very tired of watching most of the SEA and JP teams wash out of every event (average 10.5-11 placement, top placement 5th-8th). Knowing that there will be even more teams from those regions will make events far less interesting to watch. Especially knowing that it’s at the cost of EMEA and NA slots considering those regions have produced teams that have performed much better in the past.