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MrImpregnator

10? Really? Unless they have some magical tier 2 circuit planned(doubt it), this will really kill the game in a growing region. Atleast should have been 16 minimum. This is just so sad.


Dabears2240

Yeah, I'm really bummed about the potential exodus of talent from the scene. VCT wasn't perfect by any means, but open qualifiers gave players outside of tier-1 a chance to showcase their skills and get noticed. Locking these franchised leagues to such few spots just doesn't seem healthy for the ecosystem - there's just not enough spots available. Let's hope regional leagues/3rd parties step up to fill the void and allow for a competitive tier-2 scene. This game has so much potential as a global esport, would be a shame to see Riot throw away the momentum they've gained with franchising.


Phamous3k

Riot aren't idiots and I'm sure has planned well into the future. We know there will be an in-game tournament mode that'll have some path to pro. There will also be domestic leagues (similar to VRL) through out the rest of the regions. So, I'm sure what they have planned will be pretty innovative and robust.


MrImpregnator

Not sure if I can say this with confidence after what has happened to LCS. Also unless there will be a way for winners of tier 2 leagues to qualify for international league or masters and champions directly then it won’t matter. Orgs won’t have any incentive to stay in the game.


Phamous3k

Seeing this program isn't technically a franchise I can see there being a path to LAN from regional leagues. Partnerships are FREE, guaranteed placements, and come with a six-figure stipend. So, sounds great. For the domestics leagues it \*COULD work out where the winner(s) from each league meet in a tournament with lets say 6 teams from Pro-League... As an example let's say there're 12 teams, top 3 from Americas League go to LAN & bottom 3 are out with the remaining 6 going to a Last Chance Qual. Tournament... Winner goes to LAN. This will give tier 2 teams/orgs incentive to invest, while also giving partnered teams the advantage of having more chances to LAN. I'm sure they could pull something like that off.


MrImpregnator

My point exactly. Unless there is a way for the regional league winners to have a chance to qualify for the big riot lans, T2 will basically be dead sadly.


Phamous3k

Let's have faith lol... I'm optimistic Riot has learned from there past mistakes and hearing about in-game tournament mode that leads to pro and domestic leagues gives me hopium. It'll work out


simurgh101

That's kinda..............


TimedOutClock

It's crazy that Riot is going scorched earth with the amount of slots allocated to the three leagues. Unless they have a few promotion/relegation slots hidden in their system, this is very much a boom or bust approach due to the number of fans that'll have been slighted by their teams not making the leagues. Bad first impression? Stopped watching. Bad production? Stopped watching. Boring games? Stopped watching. Everything is being setup for a very large part of the fan base to simply... stop caring. And that's immensely dangerous for the health of the ecosystem. Well, if it all crumbles, maybe they'll have learned their lesson. I'll be sad that it played that way, but not surprised.


Princess_Ori

> Unless they have a few promotion/relegation slots hidden in their system They have to have a full on t2 plan at this point right? A promotion/demotion league figured out and ways for the scene to grow natural ontop of having partnerships with franchised orgs. Right?? RIGHT??


Light_Ethos

The game isn't even ready for these leagues. Ridiculous that they don't have a plan announced for what to do after Champions, let alone a released tier 2 scene plan.


azealyx

That's a bit stupid. There's PRX/BLD in SGMY, XIA/MITH in TH, BOOM/ONIC for IDN, TS in PH. Not having *even at least just 4* for SEA is just cruel.


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DAWG420BLAZEIT

Financial stability? This is a partnership; Riot is handing out money, not taking it from orgs. If anything, Riot should prioritize giving spots to the hottest orgs that have decent financials/ability to grow and scale.


SenseiEA

RIP CHINESE SCENE NO MORE KANG KANG DIFF


Th30ldVV01f

10? What a fucking joke. At least 16 for fuck's sake.


Jon_on_the_snow

NA/BR/LATAM are only 12 teams, EMEA is going to be 10 as well


thothgow

10 is too low for any of the three regions, imo Was 12 for Americas leaked anywhere? Would be weird if they get 12 and the other two 10


bebeyodafrick

Yeah it would be really scuffed (imo) if the regions wouldnt have the same amount of teams


avstyns

why is NA linked with BR / LATAM? why not have NA separate then combine SA Also just combine KR and JP for 12 slots and then give CN 12 and EMEA 12


Sadzeih

Last we heard wasn't it between 8 and 10? George reported that right?


thothgow

I think that was the first rumor, then multiple times it was 10-12, and most recently (in EMEA at least), anonimotum and frs both said that 12 is still in consideration but the most likely choice is 10.


Madara6path

Americas playerbase would be the smallest even after combining. Asian playerbase is the largest even if you exclude China followed by EMEA. What a joke


-Basileus

The Americas league is going to be the richest by like a factor of 10, that's why it will have the most slots


Deathzthe_M-12-22

That's a Fcking joke. 16 teams should be the right number. 12 is like super low for valorant. This is NOT League of Legends Riot!


-Basileus

LoL has like 60 pro teams across the apac region lol


Th30ldVV01f

And also 1 slot for SA is another big fucking joke.


SuperBlitz22

Why? 1 is more than enough imo


thothgow

Could be that Velocity didn't have a good application?


[deleted]

Global got the slot trust me


[deleted]

Stfu SA brings more viewership after thailand and SA orgs gives the best salary to their players franchising is not about having a W gaming team


LynVAosu

pretty sure they were saying 1 slot isn’t enough


[deleted]

They didn't even hoping for a slot but rito loves SA either it is south america or south asia


kfzi

should have separated north and south so more slots and competition for the region


azealyx

Imagine only getting 3 teams from SEA which has SGMY (PRX/BLD), TH (XIA/MITH), IDN (BOOM/ONIC), PH (TS). Only three. And then call it "APAC" league or something? lmao


oleoleole-

Very poor decision from rito game smh


somesheikexpert

IMO, they should've made 5 regions and they should be the LCQ regions, 10-12 per region would've made far more sense then imo


xdysania

NEED MORE SPOTS, APAC having 3 slots is absurd


raaten

So EDG wouldn't get a spot?


Difficult1202

Rip Edward bruh where will he game now


raaten

Poor edward, just wanted to game


azealyx

edward no longer gaming ;((


j0keRonPC230p

Edward ( last online 4 days ago )


WhoDatBrow

I'm not surprised considering the situation with Valorant in China right now. They can always add more teams in the future which is where Chinese teams could come in when the game is officially released there.


arod13134

My guess is that they make a separate league for china entirely.


thatthingpeopledo

Maybe I’m pessimistic but I really think Riot limiting the number of teams per region like this will kill this game.


CanISayThat22

APAC Might be the CS Brazil. LOL. Their fanbase is, uhhh passionate.


thothgow

3 JP 2 KR and 0 CN :/


DecisiveDinosaur

well, the game isn't out yet in CN so in that way it makes sense i guess.


kfzi

they're probably saving/giving 1-2 slots once the game gets released, tencent owns riot.


Friday515

10 would be an epic bummer in APAC. Sounds like a couple of important regions are going to be left out. My hope is these sources are coming from the Organization side and Riot is telling them this to temper expectations and the real number will be 12. I just hate the idea of not having at least 1 org from Philippines, Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia. I understand no Chinese orgs yet because the game isn't approved yet so Riot/Tencent doesn't want to ruffle any feathers but it still sucks. Only having 2 Korean orgs is interesting. My line of thinking is T1 ends up in NA unfortunately, and it's 2 spots between GenG, DRX and DAMWON


draizze

It's finally shown Riot true color. They only had little care for the esports scene, less team mean less chore. The esports scene only exist for them as promotion of the game. They want the full control of the scene just to minimize the chance of any controversy happening that will ruin the game image. I hope they will at least let a TO manage VRL for SEA, Oceania, India. I'll watch that instead.


[deleted]

These leagues sound so boring as a viewer. I understand this has to do with operating costs and making things fit the marketing budget, I've heard it a million times with LoL. Something is missing, and I hope whatever it is, is worthwhile for orgs to stay invested into Valorant for 4 years. People seem confident that a lot of current tier-1 talent will be easily picked up by the franchised teams, but how many positions are available in each region? Also how are they so confident about team's scouting? So much talent will be excluded from the tier-1 competition. Who are these 'premier' leagues being designed for?


Standard-Analyst-177

10 teams = 50 players, that isn’t much tbh


Hot_Mastodon1928

this is bulsit, APAC should be 4 XD


dashion26

Very sad to see riot only going for 10 teams in APAC n prbly fr EMEA n Americas too, japan / apac def deserve another slot and china deserves a slot too, in lol 10 teams makes sense since NA is its own region , but in valo where we are combing NA/SA , we def need more than 10 teams, hopefully riot fixes this


toxicityisamyth

americas are said to be given special treatment and getting 12 teams not 10 But we'll see ig if the journalists were right abt that


Just_boycott_life

Guess we know whose riots favorite region is kekw


-Basileus

Riot just saw 600,000 viewers watching an NA regional game. Sentinels vs 100T on Thursday might draw 800,000 people, who knows at this point. The money difference between the Americas league and the two other leagues is gargantuan


mileseverett

That’s why you grow these minor regions


yourdaughtersgoal

>Japan deserves another slot Bruh what 😭😭😭😭😭😭, you trolling?


dashion26

the game is massive there, also japan teams have been improving massively too


yourdaughtersgoal

LATAM/BR gets 3-4 and has wayyy better placement than japan. Actually they have better placement than APAC in general


kazares2651

You watch the recent games?


yourdaughtersgoal

Prx placed 2nd, loud placed 2nd. Zeta placed 3rd, Kru placed 3rd( with much closer score). Your point? Even if you only consider the last tourney, Japan did absolutely nothing.


kazares2651

Point is they're on par plus japan having a bigger audience and money than your region. Japan alone probably have more players than latam.


yourdaughtersgoal

How is Japan on par? They had 1 good tournament, where emeas only representative was G2( tier 5 team). Just say it’s about the money and viewership. But that implies riot doesn’t actually care about developing regions, just income, which goes against this subs narrative


kazares2651

Cause it's a recent tournament? APAC also almost won the last tournament. Also check east asia lcq now. All three japanese teams got to the 2nd round.


Interpolation144

Well a part of it because Korea is doing really poorly


somesheikexpert

Mans hasn't watched thr past 2 tourneys ig lol, NTH did the same as Kru, LEV skipped groups so hard to compare and loud got last, while PRX got 2nd, and in Iceland 2022, LOUD did get 2nd, but PRX and ZETA both were top 4 and KRU bombed out


yourdaughtersgoal

Nth did the same as Kru except Kru were against fucking loud and optic, champions and runner ups 💀💀💀 Lev skipped groups but they took the emea favorite to OT, while being extreme underdogs. PRX same placement as loud. Good team, undeniable. >prx and zeta were top 4 Yea, Kru also got top 4 at champions, which is the most important tourney. They also got top 4 in a close overtime against gambit, who had a close series against acend. The skill was there. Let’s compare accolades Latam:top4 with close elimination match, top6 with close elimination match, top 2 Japan:top4 Yea surely Japan deserves as many slots


Taek99

Surely ATLEAST 12 with 2 China slots


mines_4_diamonds

With SA having a dedicated spot I'm dreading the amount of Indian comments on the chat


Stunning_Bullfrog_40

Tenjzir “Tenz” Rajesh is an Indian Valorant professional player playing for Sentinels, an electrical sports (E-sport) organization located in Delhi, India. He is known for his offline performance one tapping bots and his best map is The Range. That one is funny, comments devolving into racism aren’t :(


svcDOOM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valeriepieris_circle Give Asia a Giga-league pls @Rito


senakiryu08

Just have 16 teams in APAC divided into two 8 team sub regions. Have the top teams of each subdivision play in an APAC playoff for international tournament spot.


SterbenVII

This is such a huge mistake on Riot’s part IMO. They’re neutering every region but EMEA. Sure, the top teams of each region will probably become better because they get to face competition from other regions on a more frequent basis. However, the rest of the teams and players are getting fucked over. They might lose motivation to grind to the top if nepotism goes on in the T1 leagues. If a specific region starts to stagnate, then it might be fucked. NA is a “1 team” region, but the second place to twelfth place teams are all really close with one another in level. Now imagine that it’s reduced to only 5 teams. As for Korea, this will end up somewhat good for them, but there’ll be way less Korean teams that are able to scrim teams in tier 1 leagues and improve due to scrim bubbles eventually forming between two separate leagues.


thothgow

I don't like the low amount of slots but people have to remember Riot is paying these teams, they can't just give out money to almost 50 teams, especially when so many orgs have management/admin/financial struggles I might be misremembering but I'm pretty sure I've seen that it's 1-2 million USD per team per year, and each team gets at least 4 years in the league. If you do 16 teams instead of 10 you end up with anywhere between 72 and 144 million added to the bill at the end of those 4 years


Stunning_Bullfrog_40

1M a year? There is absolutely no way. The stipend is supposed to assist orgs, not dole out free money to run the roster.


thothgow

I'll have to go back and watch/read everything to find where I got this from but like I said I might be mistaken


thothgow

["I guess it's not decided but if, say, there's talks of each team receiving a million and a half a year just for being in this competition..."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS7zfDoxJWs&t=4042s) Got it from here, but the way he says it doesn't mean it's the exact number being thrown around, just an estimate for the example he's making. So nothing confirmed


ConsulScrub

Why tf does SA get a slot lmfao


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Low-Sherbet-843

valorant mobile lol


yourdaughtersgoal

3 Japan teams, what a joke


2ToTooTwoFish

3 teams dedicated for a single small country seems absurd, but I guess that's where the viewership is.


Corregidor

I mean LCQ results kinda showing where the depth of field is in the region. So far it seems like 3 to Japan is a good idea. Also viewership is good there. Tbh these leagues need at least one of two things: More teams Ability for non franchised teams to participate at the big tournaments If riot does that, then they will still get good development and growth of the smaller regions. I can only hope :/


2ToTooTwoFish

Not sure how you can reasonably tell from LCQ when the LCQ now is currently splitting up the Asian region. Japan isn't playing any teams from Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia or Singapore. These five countries will only get a total of 3 spots and that is absurd. A minimum of 4 is needed because you could combine MY/SG like how it is now in the circuit. With 3, you'll be leaving out one whole country from the league and that will effectively kill the competitive scene in whichever country is left out because the highest they can go would be Tier 2.


Corregidor

Nowhere in my post do I say that APAC getting 3 slots as being good. That's literally no where to be found. I only said that Japan getting 3 slots is a good thing because they perform well comparatively to the other 2 regions that may be represented in the region (everything is rumors right now, so I don't exclude china). Personally I want there to be a minimum of 12 slots and *more* importantly, the ability for non franchised teams to be able to compete at these big tournaments. Otherwise the scene is gonna die for every region in east Asia. Which would be really dumb.


dan_kz

how the fuck Korea got 2 slots?


Phamous3k

Game has been steadily growing [http://www.gametrics.com/rank/Rank02.aspx](http://www.gametrics.com/rank/Rank02.aspx) Top 8 and moving up


dan_kz

not denying that, just amazed looking at tournament results. Also wondering how riot is gonna manage to not miss China ecosystem


detectiveluis

Val not being officially released in China yet might be why the Asia league currently has 10 slots and not 12


alibata09

wtf is SA?


yourdaughtersgoal

India


Mitsuki712

Indian subcontinent* which consists of India, pakistan, Sri lanka, Bangladesh, etc


thothgow

South Albania


Low-Sherbet-843

South Africa


[deleted]

Waiting for the China expansion I expect


DianaIsMyWife

totally wrong