with the announcement of the merge between VCL Spain, Portugal and Italy I think its official that Italian Valorant might very well be dead in the next couple of years, I was so excited to see a league for italian players to develop in and finally start a healthy comp scene in our nation, which wer lack for almost any major game save for Rocket League, but then Riot decided to kill Rinascimento completely and throw us into a very competitive league.
We had some good players that showed promise in the european field like Cayden, Tag, Bipo and HEartbeat, upcoming young talents like Sword and Alann, but why would a team ever invest into developing these players when Spain offers players that are already at a good level and dont need time to settle in? Why would a team invest in developing talents from a nation that now has minimal support and no way to showcase the upcomers? Portugal will be fine cause they have already shown their ability to produce good players like Tomaszy and ADDICTED other than already being a known presence in TacFPS like CS and with a strong org in SAW that is willing to invest in portoguese talent, we dont have that in Italy and it'll be a short time before the one italian org that gets in decides to throw away their old toys and recruit superior Iberian players rather than develop our scene.
TLDR: Its over for Italy
RIP Italian Valorant scene
Even if it was T3, even if we fucking sucked, it was atleast an endgoal for italian players, an objective to grind towards, a place to showcase our players, now its all gone and trust me that DSYRE wont bat an eye when it comes to making non-italian signings when the results dont come in from our players
Its the remerging of the leagues again, which is how it used to be before franchising.
It does suck but at least now there is some Portuguese/Italian represenation instead of spain having all the slots.
Dsyre has done a tremendous amount of good in the italian scene, really liked their approach especially with their academy roster.
The problem is that unlike Portugal, we do not have a big scene inside our country, PC gaming isnt super popular in Italy adn we really needed initiatives like the VCL to kickstart our FPS scene, cause unlike SPain and Portugal, who already had a solid playerbase even in Counter-Strike Italy starts basically from zero, having the one token Italian organization is better than nothing but this wont help the Italian scene at all in growing and becoming solid enough for young players to thrive and become as good as players from other countries with estabilished scenes, the only way is if we get a truly earth shattering talent down here, but I highly doubt we will have ever a scene as healthy and filled with players that can play for a living like in Turkey, France and even Spain, its frustrating to see a lot of right moves made by riot in helping us being unmade in the blink of an eye
Twitter thread: https://x.com/valesports_emea/status/1805602253174169612
Youtube explanation on the overall tier 2 changes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXAKzpjsMwE
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Overall W, if I'm understanding this correctly we will have 3 tournaments a year where regions play each other not just Ascension right? Fuck yeah that's what I've been asking for
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I'm surprised only Spain Portugal and Italy are gonna merge. No way they don't do anything with Polaris bro wtf. I think we need even less regions
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Why only 8 teams? Should have been 10/12 imo. Only 1 guaranteed spot for Portugal and Italy is not enough
Well Polaris has overtaken both Italy and Portugal within a year again (in terms of Viewership)
Mist games has been absolutely incredible on the production side, making huge improvements in such a short timeframe, imo already beating the 3 big leagues in Dach (ok everyone does), Spain and Turkey in terms of production.
So Id think they were guaranteed some time to actually fix stuff before a merge, given that the merge got denied/was deemed undesirable during the offseason before they were brought in
They were supposed to have Fokus too (we dont talk about what happend there...)
And youre not wrong. I really wanted them to merge with dach and just replace our TO.
There was interest behind closed doors for some more notable orgs to join next year (no clue how far the discussions went, I just know that there were some), but idk how stuff changed with the recent announcements so we'll see.
I'd love to have a discussion about this with someone that follows the Spanish VCL closely, cause I cant really see how this can be good for the health of the italian scene as a whole, I only see DSYRE as the beneficiaries of this merge cause they will be able to improve against good competition but the rest of the Italian is probably going to be left behind with no means to develop our talents with most likely only 1 team looking to recruit italian players
Let's talk then. I've read the whole thing now and I'm ngl it's worse than I thought. 1 spot for Italy and Portugal is not nearly enough. it should have been 4 2 2 and 2 through qualifier minimum.
My initial point and why I said I disagree is because I think the scene was fucked in the long term regardless. 1k viewers is not sustainable, and it was bound to end like Polaris with no orgs. I think merging is a very good solution to fix that and make it sustainable but if it's only 1 team it's kind of dumb
That being said a tier 3 league needs to be started in Italy or maybe Riot will also give slots in Liga Radiante (https://www.vlr.gg/event/2081/circuito-tormenta-liga-radiante-2024-split-2) to ascend the league from there. Talent can be grown in tier 3 which will get a huge boost from all the remainings of tier 2 and be very respectable. But a mindset change is needed, most players in that league need another job while they compete. Ik it sucks people lose their jobs but the issue was giving so many in the first place
Overall I do understand the frustration tho
The frustrating part is that we were starting to set up a Tier 3 scene with Circuito Tormenta and the BTL, the problem is that the end goal for both of these leagues was reaching the VCL in Italy, now that opportunity is goine and with likely only 1 italian team in Tier 2 the chances for players competing in our tier 3 are extremely scarce, with the VCL you could get a batch of 5-6 new players every year ideally and maybe 1 of them becomes good enough to compete in the upper echelons of tier 2, but now unless there's an incredible talent running around, its almost impossible for italian players to even get the chance to improve and become good tier 2 players, I really think the only way is we fuse the tier 3 leagues togheter too but that would definetely be a mess from an organizing standpoint.
Regarding the viewership and economics side fo things I understand the decision, our league wasnt popular enough for riot but ev en then I think this problem also stems from Riot itself, who instead of organizing a smaller event witht he main goal of developing talent and making Italy a Valorant region on par with other euro countries, decided we had to host expensive Live Finals, provide full coverage with multiple casters (almost all taken from our regional LoL stream btw, not even giving community casters a chance) and make a product on par with France or Turkey, that was never going to happen, expectations were too high from the start and of course they were disappointed and now we get almost nothing despite doing our best
Does Riot organize the Italian league, did it not have an independent organizer? I don't think it's a matter of it not being popular enough to Riot, I think it's a matter of the orgs, eventually the good one were all gonna leave, it was already happening in Spain at least.
We need to see what happens to tier 3. Overall this should be a boost for tier 3, many of the tier 2 players will have to go there and the goal of tier Italian tier 3 should still be ascending to tier 2. There will be 1 team ascending and I think LVP should make a tournament with the 2 best tier 3 teams from Portugal Spain and Italy and 2 premier teams, winner gets the 8th spot. It's either gonna be something like that or tier 3 merger as you said idk. Regardless tier 3 will still have that aspiration for sure
we do have an Independent organizer, OG Esports, but calling them independent is kind of a stretch, they are known basically only for being the guys that run the LoL Italian league and have ties to RIot, the main problem with PG with LoL was that they idnt want a good ITALIAN league, they just wanted their league to be seen as good.
This is why the Italian LoL league is absolutely atrocious from a scenen development point, cause theres barely aqny italian players in it, they were very lax with import rules and didnt take long for Orgs to realize that you could get players from Turkey and eastern europe for way cheaper than italian players (Italy has a fairly high cost of living and italian players expect to be compensated in a way that lets them live) and with better results since those foreign players already have experience playing in their own regional league and thats how we ended up with more turkish players than italian players in the league.
For Valorant they did a better job in helping italian players get to the league, but they still held on to some convinctions that we should provide a big event instead of focusing on a smaller scale tournament that could be economically sustainable
https://www.vlr.gg/event/1590/champions-tour-2023-emea-ascension/group-stage italian team couldnt even make it out of groups
Rough.
Once again makes 100% sense for the TOs financially, t2 isnt anywhere near what Riot had hoped for when they started ascension (who would have guessed when you rush it this much).
8 teams is too little. With Spains current system this would have been trivial to expand it to 12 teams, but oh well.
I just dont understand why they dont merge Italy or Portugal with Dach. Yes we have more big orgs atm, but we're also (at least from what I know) the only EMEA league with a proper t3 system. Why not merge with the region where you can be sure talent development will continue AND you can make the existing t3 system more accessible.
80% of our teams speak English too so come on.
Unless there are more merges planned (Polaris pls join us and bring your TO) this is just trolling.
edit: polaris has a t3 too actually, forgot about them
Riot relied too much on the expectation that the national scenes would build themselves off the pre-existing fanbases for CSGO and other TacFPS and you can see that where it worked it was because of a strong presence of a pre-existing fanbase of the genre that decided to switch (Germany, Spain, France, Turkey, even Portugal to a certain extent) but in places where this fanbase was small or unwilling to switch (Northern Europe, Italy) this process would have required way more time than just 2 years, i dont know if its because they are Riot or if they expect healthy communities to build that quickly, but the time we had was clearly not enough and they decied to destroy it when we were starting to make our first steps to a good ecosystem (The BTL and Tormenta were our first attempts to build a tier 3 scene with the end goal of going to RInascimento, now this possibility doesnt exist anymore).
It is very frustrating as an Italian cause despite the many obstacles we have in our country (very high costs to organize live events, cultural disposition adverse to PC gaming and more towards consoles, lack of serious estabilished Orgs) we were still starting to see some real progress and now its gone.
I really hope DACH succeeds and shows just how important T3 and making a good pipeline for regional talent is to make a good and healthy esports scene but I think Riot isnt very interested in this and probably wants to keep T2 around only for the big teams to pick up young players.
Riot relied too much on the expectation that the national scenes would build themselves off the pre-existing fanbases for CSGO and other TacFPS
Worst thing is that we knew this wasnt gonna work when we went into the t2 system but they doubled down on it. Only really France, Spain and turkey took off and the rest of us have laughable viewership. Whole thing is just a messy riot masterclass
We also have a proper tier 3 system Liga Radiante . And even a very decent amateur tier 4 Circuito Tormenta . But people can't live from those and that's a mindset shift that's gonna be rough. KPI with Bisk and Insider Ascended to Rising all the way up from Liga Radiante for example
I think Spain Polaris and Dach are the only ones who have it as far as I know and with this merger I think it's vital Italy and Portugal get one or take spots in Liga Radiante
I understand how frustrating it can be but the main motive behind it I believe would be to make it much more competitive. Lets be honest "t2" Italian scene is like ascendent ranked on NA. Not literally but the level of play just wont match up to t1. by merging the regions it allows only the most competitive and best players in t2 to shine through. I don't keep up much with t2 emea moves to t1, but obviously for NA we have T1 Rossy, and KC N4RRATE.
Well a team from MYSG did win ascension last year and an Italian or Spanish team did not win ascensions last year. Safe to assume that MYSG is better. The > general assumption I can't even tell you how many italian or spanish players have made it to any major LAN event.
is for any t1 pro who is Italian or Spanish making it to LAN, TH is Spanish org with non Spanish players. Apparently Marteen played Italian ascension as a non Italian and still made it out.
Pretty sure u r gonna say the same for regions like PH and VIETNAM then? u literally made an argument of players making LAN and now ur diverting the point? even then, as i said already, u can have ur assumptions but dont force it on others cuz every single thing said is legit wrong and i am pretty sure others will say the same. if u have ZERO knowledge about t2 emea scene, then having wild assumptions is just straight up whack.
How do you think players get good though? IF these players have no scene to play in and improve they will stay bad and become bricklayers, with an avenue to play regularly, we saw some of our players starting to improve and new talent come up, obviously not as good as countries who already had solid playerbases from the start and players with experience in other games such as CSGO, but it was the start of something and now almost all of the italian players will be left fighting for the 1-2 spots that DSYRE will give to Italian born players, instead of having a good structure where to hone their skills, our tier 3 system was based around access to the VCL and with the VCL being cancelled theres no more reasons to play in tier 3 excpet for hoping DSYRE notices you and even then, nothing stops DSYRE from just signing spanish or portoguese players
Does Premier ascension not work in EMEA, I get what you're saying but their cannot be so many regions and you expect things to be "competitive"
Having a large region like EMEA be spread out in t2 scene just causes less quality competition an inflation of players. Merging the regions will make it much more competitive now people know they have to fight for 1 of those 2 spots making them try even harder. didnt make it? well you just were not good enough.
If you think players from certain countries dont ever make it to tier 1 is because they "dont try hard enough" you are missing the forest from the trees, if certain countries dont have the means to make a player "try harder" then nobody will ever even try, its not even about being a big region or a small region, Peru has a huge amount of great DotA 2 players because the love for that game made a big scene flourish in a small country (thanks to the completely open system in DotA 2 that allows anyone to make it to big tournaments and get gameas against good teams), but if you take away the means for a region to develop those players then we will never ever have someone good enough to make it to the bigs
not literal obviously just comparing things. Im sure there are great players in the region but obviously none of as notable as marteen nor did they get scouted. Hes arguing Italian performance but you highlighted a Non Italian player from the italian league that got scouted from an itialian org who again is not Italian.
I think being in a merged league is better for Portugal, Portugal doesn't have that much orgs that can invest in the game, so being in a league that has other orgs where Portuguese players can play will be better for the players, the competitive level on the Portuguese league also isn't the best with the 2/3 top teams usually being way better than the others, so now the best Portuguese players can have better competition.
Just 8 teams for the league is too low tho, I hope that number isn't final and they increase it
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