What if Valorant had 3rd party tournaments?

Honestly franchising is a more organized system which can benefit riot by having all of their s tier tournaments organized by riot only, but honestly IMO it's much less exciting

1. League + playoffs is essentially the qualifiers for any international tournament
2. If you suck then you can only play 10 matches - 13 matches, and play matches that don't even matter
3. There are less chances for teams to win trophies
4. off season is shockingly long and boring

I always wonder what if valorant adopted CS or Dota's style of tournaments, where 3rd party organizers can organize tournaments and I feel like having more than 3 international tournaments a year is just way more excitingg (which means you have to stretch the timeline from february till late october or november)

They can do it like how Dota does it (the DPC system back in like 2017 to 2023), where there are a bunch of majors/s tier tournaments and 1 huge tournament organized by valve (The International). In val this would be Champions.
In valorant, orgs like ESL, BLAST, PGL, and IEM can be 3rd party organizers, and have like maybe 4 or 5 huge international majors/masters and 1 champions (4 is probably the way to go) per year. It would be like:

February: Masters Qualifiers 1 per region
Late Feb-Mid March: Masters 1
Mid March - Early April: Break/Patch change or something
Mid April: Masters Qualifiers 2 per region
Early May-Mid May: Masters 2
Mid May - Early June: Break/Patch Change
June-Early July: Masters Qualifiers 3 per region
Mid July-Mid August: Masters 3
Mid August: Early September Break/Patch Change
Mid September - Early October: LCQ/Open qualifier per region for only 1 slot (LAN)
Mid October-Early Nov: Valorant Champions
Nov - February: Offseason and Roster Shuffling

This would have a circuit point system (similiar to valorant in 2021 actually) where the top 3 teams per region would be directly invited to Champions
and the last slot is an LCQ with 1 more team.

Teams get circuit points based on how well they do in regional qualifiers and international tournaments

Regional (Top 3 goes masters):
1st = 5 points
2nd = 3 points
3rd = 2 points
4th = 1 point

Masters Point:
1st = 10 points
2nd = 6 points
3rd = 5 points
4th = 4 points
5-6th = 3 points
7th-8th = 2 points

IMO, giving huge points to the masters and regional qualifiers winners make sense because you deserve to be in champions if you win a masters (or atleast this point gap can help a lot, though if you win 1 masters and lose the rest of the year then you're cooked)

1 problem I would have is that I don't know how the regions will go, It can be the same as the current regions rn tbh
Americas = 4
EMEA = 4
APAC = 4
CHINA = 4

which can work but I think it's more fair to split the Americas into 2 NA and 2 SA
Ideally all the qualifiers should be LAN but historically most of these qualifers are online, which will be hard for the NA and SA matches.

1 thing I can think of is to make the open qualifiers online and the qualifiers for masters a LAN + broadcasted tournament, with 12 teams (and ofcourse, a trophy!

(each team from each region like Americas for example. the 6 NA teams, 3 latam, and 3 br teams, will all be in one 12 team tournament for the masters qualifier)
Americas = 6 NA teams, 3 LATAM, 3 BR,, qualifier LAN in LA
EMEA = I have no idea how EMEA would work but maybe go 6 western europe 3 CIS/Eastern Europe, the rest are MENA, qualifier LAN in Berlin
APAC = 6 SEA Teams, 3 KR teams, 3 JP teams, qualifier LAN in Seoul
China = 12 chinese teams ofc,, qualifier LAN in shanghai

These are my thoughts on how this would go. 3 masters + 1 champions is a decent system

positives = more matches, more trophies to win, more tournaments, 3rd party organizers, more breaks for players and a short off season, more chances for unknown/lower tier teams to make internationals, no franchise system, no ascension system
negatives = probably logistically more difficult, and the schedule would clash with league worlds

Maybe there are flaws or corrections that you vlr guys can make, feel free to suggest it!

tdlr: vct system is 3 masters + 1 champion, season is february to october, open qualifier online, LAN qualifier offline, more trophies, point system, top 3 teams with most points per region invited to champs, lcq for last slot

w take

Jyhz [#2]

w take

fr fr

100% agree, I wasn't watching pre franchising but I still remember seeing games constantly being played, now some teams only play 10 games a year which is just bad.

This will also help the Valorant scene grow because more chances to qualify for lans --> --> more games being played --> more investors/sponsors --> more playing grinding to go pro --> more streamers --> more popularity --> more people playing --> and most importantly more people buying skins

tbh for champions I think a 32 team event would be even better

all champions bundle proceedes should go directly into the champs prize pool or like 50%, makes the stakes even higher

ozaee [#4]

100% agree, I wasn't watching pre franchising but I still remember seeing games constantly being played, now some teams only play 10 games a year which is just bad.

This will also help the Valorant scene grow because more chances to qualify for lans --> --> more games being played --> more investors/sponsors --> more playing grinding to go pro --> more streamers --> more popularity --> more people playing --> and most importantly more people buying skins

tbh for champions I think a 32 team event would be even better

all champions bundle proceedes should go directly into the champs prize pool or like 50%, makes the stakes even higher

for champions with a 32 team imo would be logistically be difficult, like Lock//In. They could do that if the esports industry is much more financially stable and have valorant be more popular

This is a very cool idea. However, it is also very complex, so it will be difficult for Riot to implement this.

highlyte [#6]

This is a very cool idea. However, it is also very complex, so it will be difficult for Riot to implement this.

yeah it would be a logistic difficulty, but if dota and cs can implement this, then I'm sure riot can.

But they definitely won't implement this since franchising exists

Yes it looks cool.
However, I believe that the system as it is now would hardly change the look of the teams competing in the Masters and Champions. And teams that don't get paid for Champions skins will never have revenues exceeding expenses. monetizing the tier2 scene is also a big issue, what are your thoughts on that? I don't think increasing the prize money for Masters qualifiers will be a big plus for them. Also, if the league system is eliminated, the system of league participation fees and minimum annual salaries will be eliminated at the same time.

W post 😎

nyto [#8]

Yes it looks cool.
However, I believe that the system as it is now would hardly change the look of the teams competing in the Masters and Champions. And teams that don't get paid for Champions skins will never have revenues exceeding expenses. monetizing the tier2 scene is also a big issue, what are your thoughts on that? I don't think increasing the prize money for Masters qualifiers will be a big plus for them. Also, if the league system is eliminated, the system of league participation fees and minimum annual salaries will be eliminated at the same time.

yeah that's a problem as well, there would be no annual salary from riot. The players would still earn salaries from their orgs though (established orgs, no-name small orgs would have difficulty)

I mean, I guess the only way to monetize your team is to win more. If your team is bad and don't qualify for even the regional lan qualifiers, then I'm sorry but you won't earn much or anything at all, that's just the nature of sports and the game. I think that's how they do it in CS and Dota.

armadmeister1 [#5]

for champions with a 32 team imo would be logistically be difficult, like Lock//In. They could do that if the esports industry is much more financially stable and have valorant be more popular

esports IS financially stable, it is growing every single year

ozaee [#11]

esports IS financially stable, it is growing every single year

yeah if it keeps growing then next year should be a good time for a 32 team champions