Valorant 2024 Review: Battle of the Regions

Valorant 2024 Review: Battle of the Regions

Introduction
With the Final of Valorant Champions behind us, let's look back on the year to find out which region had the best performance in the fourth iteration of the VCT. We have had many highs and lows for each region with Sentinels winning Masters Madrid, becoming the first ever organisation to win two masters titles, whilst China and EMEA never saw playoffs. But then at Masters Shanghai we saw GenG get to back to back masters finals and most importantly convert this second one to bring home Pacific’s first international trophy, meanwhile for Americas the Master Madrid winners could only watch helplessly from home having failed to qualify for the event.

We then have Champions Seoul very much still fresh in our mind with Edward Gaming and Team Heretic’s epic five map grand final which saw heartbreak for Heretics as they lost back to back international finals, their fourth grand final loss of the year. However the prize went deservedly to the Edward Gaming helping continue a year of firsts to have China win its first international trophy.

However before I dive further into discussing which region had a better year overall it is worth discussing how I intended to measure this. I used an F1 style points system to provide points for every single event that happened this year, domestic and international. This has helped discover the top teams of the year as well as adding up all the points from teams in the same region to find the best performing region of 2024. Another quick disclaimer: I have valued Champions significantly over Masters events with the winner of Masters events getting roughly the same number of points as coming second in Champions, as for me Champions will always be the ultimate goal of every team.

The Top Teams
The top teams in the year can really be split into tiers by seeing where the massive point drop offs appear throughout the rankings so this is how I will be treating the teams in this section.

Starting off we have the “Gasping for Air” tier of teams; this is for every team that got less than 5 points across the whole year, with a point being roughly equal to a match win for teams down this end of the order and the common trend is that almost all of them never saw playoffs. This tier consists of 16 of the teams in VCT ranging from the objective poorest performers of the year Bleed Esports who won only one match to All Gamers the only team in this tier to make a playoff appearance. The full list of teams in this tier are: All Gamers, BBL, Bleed Esports, DetonatioN FocusMe, Furia, Gentle Mates, GIANTX, Global Esports, KOI, MIBR, Nova Esports, Team Liquid, Titan Esports Club, TYLOO, Wolves Esports and Zeta Divizion

The next tier is “Treading Water”: these teams may have made domestic playoffs regularly but most of them were never in any danger of troubling international event qualification and for those that made it they went home winless. The point range for this tier is 6-11 points and includes teams ranging from Evil Geniuses who made it deep at Americas Kickoff but only needed a record of 1-1 to achieve the feat to Talon Esports who managed to qualify for Champions at the end of the year. The full list of teams in this tier are: Bilibili Gaming, Cloud9, Dragon Ranger Gaming, Evil Geniuses, JD Gaming, Natus Vincere, NRG, Rex Regum Qeon, T1, Talon Esports and Team Secret.

With the next tier we move onto our top four tiers which sees a fall in the number of teams included but a larger range of points between each tier. This tier is the “One Hit Wonder” tier for teams that made only one international appearance but unlike the teams in the previous tier they won games whilst there, earning themselves more points. The points range for this tier is 13-18 and includes only four teams with Loud and Karmine Corp peaking early in the year, only appearing at Masters Madrid. Along with KRU and Team Vitality who only appeared at Champions.

This next tier is “Went on a Run” and includes teams with 22 to 29 points. The name is slightly misleading as this tier includes five teams of which DRX, 100 Thieves and Trace Esports meet the description of only appearing at one international event but going on a deep run. Whilst FUT Esports and FunPlus Phoenix made multiple international events never going particularly deep but consistently being there.

The “Contender” tier consists of teams with 40-48 points and these teams mostly made at least two international events and went deep at both of them and won a domestic title. There are only four teams in this tier and one major exception to the rule with G2 being the only team in this tier that didn’t win a domestic title. Meanwhile Paper Rex and Leviatan both won one domestic title each and peaked at third place finishes in international tournaments although Leviatan’s third at Champions is undoubtedly more impressive. The last team in this tier is Fnatic who managed to win two domestic titles along with attending two international tournaments even if Shanghai was a poor performance the 5th-6th in Seoul was respectable enough grab them enough points to reach this tier.

Lastly we have the “Titan” tier which again consists of only four teams ranging from 62 points all the way to 86 points. This tier should solely be made up of teams with international titles if it wasn’t for Team Heretic’s proclivity for losing finals or Edward Gaming’s dominance over China as regardless of which of them won Champions both would have made it into this tier based on my points system. Now of course Edward Gaming did win champions making them the team with the most points this year thanks to a clean sweep of China domestic titles to go with the ultimate prize. Next on the list is Gen.G Esports who made the finals of both Masters events winning the second one and also hold two domestic titles for the year. Following that up is Team Heretics who despite attending four finals including two at international events never managed to win one this year but their consistency in getting there no doubt places them among the teams of this calibre. Last but certainly not least we have Sentinels who won Americas Kickoff and Masters Madrid to cement their spot in this tier.

Disclaimer
Sadly it turns out everything i wanted to write couldn't fit in the text so I will add the section conlcuding the strengths of the regions in my first reply.

PS
If you liked this I will be releasing my top players of the year consisting of a Global 20, Americas 10, China 10, EMEA 10 and Pacific 10 so keep an i out for that and I will also link it here.

PSS
aint reading all that happy for you though or sad it happened

Region Comparison
With an overview of how each team performed in the year there is only one question left: which region was the best in VCT 2024. The answer to this question cannot simply lie in which region won Champions or the most international trophies as the strength of a region must also measure its depth. Therefore to answer this question I added up the points of all the teams in each region to create a region score.

In fourth place despite winning Champions we have China clocking in with a score of 186. No doubt let down by its depth this was still a great year for China though, with Edward Gaming lifting the regions first trophy and a second year of two teams making top 8 at Champions and never forget that FPX only lost to the two finalists at Masters Shanghai.

In third place with 198 points we have EMEA, a region that had a disappointing year after winning two of the international trophies last year. EMEA had better depth than last year with more teams making it deep in tournaments however like last year they only had one team who seemed to be in any danger of winning and sadly for the region despite two attempts they could not get it across the line.

In second place we have Pacific, with 204 points, and much like for China this was a monumental year as the region took home its first international trophy and doubled the number of finals the region has made in its history. What sets Pacific apart from China and equally what sets Americas apart from Pacific is the improved depth as you look at each region as they each won a trophy.

In first place we have the Americas with a massive 232 making them the clear best region. And this pains me to say as an EMEA fan but you can see why as with an early international trophy in Madrid the Americas region always had two teams in the top four at every international event and the only thing stopping the region running away with this further was their struggle to reach finals finishing both third and fourth at the later two international events.

Overall I think this year has proved just how international an esport valorant is and I look forward to seeing what happens in the offseason and the 2025 VCT.

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