Participants
Start off with 20 teams instead of the 16 we have now, this way we can reward the regions who performed well during the 2021 VCT
- The 2 Finalists of Masters 3 (NV and Gambit if we did this right now for example)
- Top 3 NA teams
- Top 3 EMEA teams
- Top 2 BR teams
- Top 1 LATAM team
- Top 2 KR team
- Top 1 JP team
- Top 2 SEA team
- 1 LCQ slot per continent like we have now
This should elevate the level of competition up a bit, now that more NA & EMEA teams can participate, as well as give Korea a deserved slot with how well they've done at the past 2 Masters events.
Group Stage
- 4 groups, 5 teams each, all 5 play against one another in Round Robin
- Attempt to diversify each group (idk specifically how this would be done, ideally each group would have at least 1 NA and 1 EMEA, some would likely have multiple of those though because NA and EU are most likely to win Masters events)
- the top 3 of each group moves on to the playoffs
Playoffs
- The #1 seed per group get a bye past the first round of games
- the #2 and #3 teams play each other (teams from the same group can't play against each other at this stage)
- Typical 8 team bracket from there with a 3rd place match being played out before the final game
- the bracket would look something like this (enjoy my beautiful ms paint drawing)
Issues
- Riot's LANs for LCQs are only about a week long. The amount of games needed to be played would be too much in that time, so there'd need to be multiple games being broadcasted at once or Riot would need to begin hosting longer events
- Trying to allocate regions into groups will be even more of a pain then it was this year, with a group of death being probably even more likely now
- The future with COVID & travel restrictions would be unknown, so some teams might not be able to attend the event
- With China just recently getting Valorant, it might work out better to give them a slot instead of the Masters 2 runner-up, so they aren't in the situations that minor regions like south asia or arabia are in
Just wanted to know your guys' thoughts on a tournament format like this. The current VCT system in general kinda bugs me with how it's structured, not only on this level but also with point allocation and how minor regions are incorporated only into LCQ, so it'd be cool to hear what you guys think.
Discord