6 Region Franchising (Best possible solution)

#1

Two_Percent

I'd been thinking since VCT CN became a thing on a better solution, as I always thought it wasn't fair for sa and na to share a region where sa gets consistently cucked, whereas china is one country (albeit a big one) and has its own entire region. After a few years of curating this, here's my final revised approach, comment/yell at me with feedback

NA:
Sen
G2
C9
100T
NRG
Envy
TSM
EG/Flyquest

SA:
Kru
Lev
9Z
E-Xolos
Los Grandes
Loud
Furia (don't hate they have no visa problems + they are a big org)
Mibr

East Asia:
T1
DRX
GenG
Dplus/Nongshim
Zeta
Dfm + Cr (merger boutta happen)
2 of Fennel/Scarz/Reject

China:
EDG
Fpx
Tyloo
Bilibili
Wolves
Trace
Nova
TOP/Jdg/Drg/tec/All gamers

APAC:
PRX
Rrq
Global
Talon
Team Secret
Boom
Full sense/MiTH
Fancy united or something maybe some non val org could field a viet/other sea team here

EMEA:
Fnc
Liquid
Navi
Heretics
Vitality
Fut
Koi
Kc

No "ascension" teams, if you're bottom 2 in the region, you get sent to ascension no matter the org or team

Masters 1 (12 teams):

2 teams from each region, group stage has 4 groups of 3 teams, round robin, winner of each group goes to a 4 team double elim playoffs for the trophy. No more 8 team masters so a little less "mickey mouse" than madrid or bangkok

Stage 1:

Basically the same as it is now, either play 3-4 teams or all other 7 teams depending on how long the vct season is (lowk a longer season couldnt hurt), top 8 teams go to seeded bracket and the top teams go to masters 2.

Masters 2 (16 teams):

Top 4 regions as masters 1 bring top 3 teams from their respective regions, other two regions bring 2 teams. Basically just a champs style system with 4 groups of 4 going into an 8 team double elim playoffs

Stage 2:

Similar to 2024, but each team either plays the teams they didnt play in stage 1 or plays all other 7 teams again. From there top 8 go to a seeded playoffs where the top 4 go to champs

Champions Stage (24 teams):

Kinda a new idea, instead of champs being a tournament, its more of an internation "stage 3" but with the 24 best teams in the world. 4 groups of 6, round robin, the top 4 from each group go to the group stage. From there, 4 groups of 4 standard champs group stage, top 2 teams from each group goes to champs tournament.

Champions (8 teams):

Basically just a continuation, but dividing it up into two allows the champs playoffs to happen after a short break from champs stage. Also this would make it so that you could have a really fancy expensive venue to close out the year since there are only gonna be 8 teams and 1 playoffs stage. Standard champs playoffs, basically just a continuation of champs stage but make it feel more hype by disconnecting the playoffs.

In terms of import rules, some regions will get the hong kong/taiwan treatment, where because of geographical, political, cultural, or other reasons, they count as non imports in two regions. For example, central asian countries like uzbekistan and kazakhstan that are geographically closer to emea, but also often play on asian servers would be non import for just apac and emea. Additionally, some north/central american countries like mexico or dominican republic would be non import for both na and sa, bc a mexican team technically would be part of na, but culturally and linguistically fits much better into sa. Yes there are concerns that this could be a little too unfair for some regions, but I highly doubt it will be a problem bc I cant really see Mexico or Kazakhstan dominating in valorant to the point that they take other native countries slots away any time soon

Overall, I want the regions to feel more geographically, competitively, and culturally balanced, and I think 6 is the best we can get realistically if we want to keep the regions even sized. My only other big change would be to extend champions with a round robin stage before the group stage, and detach the playoffs stage so champions can feel less like a masters tournament and more like a whole tour/stage where the top 50% of teams can really compete and play a large quantity of matches to see who's the best, kind of what lock in was supposed to be but much more manageable and much less "mickey mouse" idk drop your suggestions or critiques below

#2

kfan4238173

-6

Frags

+

–

nah emea too strong then, gotta have way more slots

#3

Two_Percent

9

Frags

+

–

but one big concern for me was keeping each region the same size, and idk how to divide emea, and even if i did the regions would be unbalanced as hell between the two european regions, and then we would also have 7 regions which is an ugly number

emea is also the most homogeneous region with only 1 national team compared to every other region which is subdivided into many smaller regions, and the talent pool in both t1 players looking to switch teams and rising t2 players for emea have a lot more flexibility in choosing which t1 emea team to join, as currently 11/12 of them speak english and have diverse international rosters

#47

VxpxFX

5

Frags

+

–

EU West
FNATIC 🇬🇧
Vitality 🇫🇷
Heretics 🇪🇸
GiantX 🇪🇸
KCorp 🇫🇷
Fokus 🇩🇪
Liquid 🇳🇱

EU East + MENA
Enterprise 🇵🇱
FUT 🇹🇷
BBL 🇹🇷
Falcons 🇸🇦
NAVI 🇺🇦
Pcific 🇹🇷
Metizport 🇳🇴
DNSTY 🇮🇹

#48

askrial

2

Frags

+

–

actually kinda W
only thing is that falcons would poach ever player under the sun.

#49

VxpxFX

0

Frags

+

–

Well any Saudi or Africa Org would be nice, doesn’t have to be Falcons

#67

SnorlaxEnjoyer

0

Frags

+

–

Falcons could be interesting

Recoil (Recon)
Akai/B1sk (Duelist) would be a good start

#77

Two_Percent

0

Frags

+

–

I mean this is why riot hates falcons/saudi, prob the reason they wont get a team in emea for a bit

#50

Two_Percent

4

Frags

+

–

Like yes ideally this is a good solution, but two major problems arise for me

This would make it so now there are 7 regions, which is terrible for planning (anything odd number is hard, plus 7 is prime so its even worse) and there is no clear 8th region that would make sense to add (I initially thought of OCE, but look through this thread and see why it wouldnt make sense at all)
Teams like Metizport, Dnsty, enterprise, and navi all are equally intertwined with emea. Splitting them up for the sake of splitting them up doesnt make any sense, as youre just barring so many players and teams that would previously play with eachother

In summary, emea is the one region outside of china where subregions are pointless, since other than turkey nobody makes national teams, and everybody just signs good players from any emea country as long as they speak english. The split here is cool in concept, but it doesnt actually help divide the region into a more manageable scale where competition is fair, bc no one subregion in emea dominates rn. This "solution" only really adds more restriction both in the emea scene for players and orgs, but also on riot for deciding how to organize masters/champs with 7 regions

#51

askrial

0

Frags

+

–

honestly you could even split it into 3 if you really wanted 8 and incorporate more CIS orgs and maybe even north asia.

#76

Two_Percent

0

Frags

+

–

Nah splitting emea into 2 was already on the edge for me, and for reasons I mentioned 50 times before I am pretty against it, so splitting it into 3 would just be way too crazy imo and make no sense at all

#39

Tsikhamani

2

Frags

+

–

Emea last won their trophy in 2023 😅😅
I don't think is makes any difference!

#4

elament

0

Frags

+

–

where oce at?

#5

Two_Percent

1

Frags

+

–

oce could be part of apac, but considering there isnt really a single large well known oce org in val, i dont think it makes sense to add one

#6

fungame024

0

Frags

+

–

there was JJH, but Ekings is doing ok rn

#7

Two_Percent

0

Frags

+

–

yeah fair, but in total i feel like oce val is a little behind both in esports and overall playerbase, i dont think that there will be an oce team in t1 any time soon

#11

fungame024

0

Frags

+

–

Yeah, OCE is mostly just Australians and a like a couple NZers and theres not much of uz

#14

Two_Percent

0

Frags

+

–

I mean i hope in the future that yall get more opportunity, any growth is positive growth imo

#18

fungame024

0

Frags

+

–

getting autumn and swerl in tier 1 is already a huge achievement imo

#23

Two_Percent

0

Frags

+

–

I mean yeah it definitely is, hopefully a pacific org can pick up another oce player or by a miracle an oce team/a team with a few oce players ascend so people can recognize the scene and its problems kinda like when dos9 and sultan were trying out for t1 and people realized that riot doesnt give a shit about central asia

#36

fungame024

0

Frags

+

–

yuppp, i dont really follow oce split but i reckon ekings or even fullhouse can do some damage in ascension

#8

LocoMonteiro

-3

Frags

+

–

keeping EMEA which is already the biggest region in terms of T2 the same but giving SA and APAC a whole ass region with the same slots for internationals gotta be the dumbest thing ive ever read on here no offense

#12

Two_Percent

0

Frags

+

–

#3

#15

LocoMonteiro

-3

Frags

+

–

Using the T2 regions as reference it would look something like:
West: Spain, France, MENA,DACH which currently have 6 teams and are bound to have more when a Middle east org joins in 2027
East: Polaris, Turkey, CIS which also have 6 teams and hopefully wil get a CIS org like Spirit

As for the rest of #3, with all due respect, its a bunch of nonsense.... what do you mean "rising t2 players for emea have a lot more flexibility in choosing which t1 emea team to join" there are more than 60 teams in T2, thats more than 300 players plus the already franchised ones fighting for 60 spots in franchising, meanwhile you want to make a region entirely made up of NA which literally has 1 single T2 league

#16

Two_Percent

3

Frags

+

–

What that means is that if you are a prospect t2 emea player that speaks english, you can currently join any t1 team (except fut) and a majority of t2 teams in the whole region. NA does only have 1 t2 league, but relatively the league is much larger, and players in NA have to fight over many less slots that are already much more filled than in emea. The problem spreads to SA as well, where teams like lev and loud are picking up leftover NA players because it is more convenient, they can build an english roster easier, and talent development is much easier if the players are playing in the same country that they are from. In emea you could be a lithuanian player who played for a polish org with spanish, french, russian, and swedish teammates and still be given the equal opportunity that a portugese player playing for an english org would get.

End of the day subregions in emea (other than turkey) are literally useless since no t1 teams (other than fut) field national rosters, and almost all t2 rosters (outside of turkey) in emea are english international anyways so even though there seems like there is more talent, the opportunity is more bountiful and the slots are much more open.

#9

1dan1x

-2

Frags

+

–

so it's more fair to put sa teams into champs where they get cucked?
also we had LEV, LOUD, KRÜ consistently placing high in americas LEV and LOUD even winning one
a bit of an overreaction if you ask me

#10

SadPandaBear

6

Frags

+

–

I think its more of an issue with players having visa issues getting into the US, so having them play in SA might be easier for logistics and getting together their actual rosters without stand-ins and also helps further develop SA T2 teams by allowing them to scrim SA T1 teams on lower ping.

#13

Two_Percent

1

Frags

+

–

I mean thats whats happening with china rn... like a few teams can even compete but the majority sink to the bottom and would get curbstomped by mid level teams from other regions

giving sa their own region would at least help talent develop quicker and give those teams an avenue to more easily sign players mid season without the risk of visa issues, plus them being much closer to home and therefor less travel + jet lag would help a bunch with player mental health, which I think is one reason that is completely underlooked when seeing why sa under performs so heavily in americas

#17

Two_Percent

1

Frags

+

–

also bc of how hard it is to field sa talent compared to na talent we are seeing teams like loud, lev, and mibr slowly switch over to having more international, english speaking rosters

#19

IceCreamFan

5

Frags

+

–

Yell?? Don't be self-depreciating dude. This is WAY better than whatever fuckery riot has been doing for the past 5 years. Amazing job.
Yeah EMEA is a massive region but #3 explains the problem. That way it's completely fair.

👏🏽🫶🏽

#21

Two_Percent

1

Frags

+

–

Thank you bro I appreciate it. Most people on this site just clown anything lol.

Yeah in terms of emea I had the initial idea of adding a region which would be like central asia, turkey, middle east, east europe, and north africa, but the issue was that there were not enough teams to fill the slots and make it globally competitive, and even if orgs invested then there would be 7 regions which is a really ugly number, and there wasn't really an 8th region I could add (I initially thought about oce, but there isn't nearly enough presence in val)

#20

Dybala21

3

Frags

+

–

Props for your time to prepare this but unfortunately Riot is too stubborn and only cares about making profit

#22

Two_Percent

0

Frags

+

–

yeah I mean what are the chances that Leo Faria lurks vlr lol maybe it could happen fingers crossed

#24

Shadrach

2

Frags

+

–

I dont know why i kinda like this idea

And i like the fotmat of group stage of cs major, you can play win 2 before you lose 2 or win 3 before lose 3 2 or 3 times by using this format, more valorant more entertainment...

BUT KEEP THE PLAY OFF DOUBLE ELIMINATION

CS PLAYOFF FORMAT IS DOG SHIT

#25

Warlordwibz

1

Frags

+

–

6 regions, 6 production team, 6 studios/venue, 6 countries bank accounts, 6 import player VISA issues.
Dividing APAC and East Asia... well looks like Pacific competitiveness goes back to pre partnership era. RIP Pacific dominance.
PRX will monopolise APAC international slot like VS/DRX era and JP teams will get farmed by KR teams. SEA and KR teams will be stagnant.
South American teams will never gonna improve unless playing in NA and scrim NA teams.
Viewership will drop massively for non NA & EMEA region. NA viewer won't bother watching SA and APAC fans won't bother watching East Asia.
Region matches gonna overlap another in Asia timezone (3 region playing).
This entire idea will massively nerf asia and South America ( CN/EA/APAC) and heavily benefit EMEA & NA only.

#27

Shadrach

2

Frags

+

–

No, tell that to china

#31

Warlordwibz

0

Frags

+

–

JP teams benefit competing with SEA teams.
Top SEA teams benefit by competing against KR teams.
Dividing SEA and East Asia will hinder those growth.
CN located in Shanghai, it'll only benefit CN & East Asia, not APAC.
Centralizing every pacific teams in Korea benefits everyone in asia.

#44

Two_Percent

1

Frags

+

–

JP is cucked in pacific bc they have only two slots, and giving them any more would just cuck everyone else. JP teams in my scenario would also benefit from competing with more jp teams and also kr teams.
Top sea teams will benefit, bc there is more regional talent, and therefore teams can more quickly progress into being top teams instead of just being destroyed by korean teams like they are now
Dividing sea and ea will allow both regions to have more slots, develop more talent, offer more viewership, cut off korea from just dominating sea, bring more jp t2 fans/teams/talent into t1, and help develop struggling sub regions
Idk what youre talking about with your china point or how it relates at all to what im arguing
how does centralizing pacific in kr benefit everyone?? korea clearly dominates pacific and outside of prx no other pacific team has had or is having any global presence

#30

Two_Percent

1

Frags

+

–

SA is literally so held back because brazilian teams cant sign talent mid season and cant sign talent late in the offseason

Jp valorant will actually have a chance to grow both in terms of skill and viewership, and jp t2 is huge in japan, and some of the best talent from pac comes from jp t2

Na viewers already barely watch sa vs sa games, and they would anyways pull in more sa viewership bc of timezone differences plus more recognition, and east asia will have a huge influx of jp t2 fans bc there will be an actual t1 presence

Asia timezone issues can be solved by only having 1-2 asian regions playing per day, and the others playing on off days

Cn got a massive buff after no longer being associated with pacific/being a weird subregion

Emea will become the same the only thing is the bottom feeding players/teams will die, Na will get better regionally but at the international level really stay the same, the top na teams are already heavily dominant

overall having more specialized regions helps local national and regional talent to develop without one subregion dominating, plus the system of masters 2 only having 2 teams for the 2 worst regions makes it so the worse regions dont just flood internationals. we saw it with china, where the year it became an official region they won champions. brazil, japan, and apac all have the potential to become huge international threats as we have seen in previous tournaments, but they are constantly cucked in their own region due to being held outside their country, having visa issues, teams with shit management, or just not enough representation for the amount of talent that they have. Emea will not dominate, as most of the teams are the same, and they all basically comm in english (check #3 and #16 for more in depth, not explaining this again)

#33

Warlordwibz

-1

Frags

+

–

SA is literally so held back

Don't hold americas in US, find a more VISA friendly country (Maybe mexico?)

Jp valorant will actually have a chance to grow both in terms of skill and viewership

look at pre partnership JP and KR teams, KR VS/DRX was heavily stagnant, JP and KR benefit from different playstyle of SEA fast paced aggressive aim.

Na viewers already barely watch sa vs sa games

dividing NA and SA would make that worse, seeing SA teams beat NA teams would cause more interest to watch.

Asia timezone + Cn got a massive buff

current pacific + CN schedule is perfect 2 region per day exactly. EDG beat SEN sunset at champs due to having close ties with PRX. Asia ties are good, and having APAC teams in Korea reaps its benefit.

Emea will become the same

less EMEA teams in the league (12 to 8) will cause top teams in EMEA to be more dominant, Partnership era causes EMEA to decline due to many competition, the mid table are causing the different representation for each internationals. Top EMEA teams would prefer less teams to be more consistent and keep it winning form instead of fluctuations.

Overall the SA visa issues mainly with americas hosted in non visa friendly country to those less developed, even bren said in platchat to consider change location for VCT Americas. Leo Faria said ascension can't be hold in US cause BR teams would need 7 months on VISA application. This year in specific many casters/analyst does say Pacific recent dominance is due to having many different playstyle, and it all stems from APAC aggressiveness, KR utility macro, diff comps and the benefit of scrim CN teams in the region. Splitting Asia would reverse the effects of those benefits in which sent Asia back to pre partnership era.

#3

EMEA is weird cause only turkey got integrated to EMEA, no CIS (unfortunate) and MENA region org. Tier 2 is a mess but the top EMEA org benefit heavily and benefit by being more consistent due to less teams. Having stacked EMEA teams (12) will create different representative at internationals, which is why EMEA was better pre partnership instead of partnership era.

#16

that issue with US being a non visa friendly to countries who aren't "first world countries" . A more concentrated South America specific league would just turn into Japan, won't be great internationally unless a LOUD superteam was formed. Venue relocation is better solution. South American teams scrimming NA teams is better for development like pacific and CN.

#53

Two_Percent

1

Frags

+

–

Don't hold americas in US, find a more VISA friendly country (Maybe mexico?)

Riot is based in LA. Unfortunately it doesn't make sense for them to spend the money and resources relocating, and for them its easier/cheaper to just let Sa falter.

look at pre partnership JP and KR teams, KR VS/DRX was heavily stagnant, JP and KR benefit from different playstyle of SEA fast paced aggressive aim.

Sea players and teams are not inherently more aggressive, and kr players and teams are not inherently more stagnant. In an 8 team East asian region I guarantee we would see a variety of playstyles, players, and teams.

dividing NA and SA would make that worse, seeing SA teams beat NA teams would cause more interest to watch.

this is not a counterpoint, just your opinion. Me personally I would rather see a flourishing Sa scene that was globally competitive rather than one that just keeps getting curbstomped by na and filling the bottom slots

less EMEA teams in the league (12 to 8) will cause top teams in EMEA to be more dominant, Partnership era causes EMEA to decline due to many competition, the mid table are causing the different representation for each internationals. Top EMEA teams would prefer less teams to be more consistent and keep it winning form instead of fluctuations.

Literally I countered this exact sentiment like 5 times in this thread, I'm not gonna explain it again but there is more than enough of an argument against this. Look at #3

Overall the SA visa issues mainly with americas hosted in non visa friendly country to those less developed, even bren said in platchat to consider change location for VCT Americas. Leo Faria said ascension can't be hold in US cause BR teams would need 7 months on VISA application.

Look at the top of this comment

This year in specific many casters/analyst does say Pacific recent dominance is due to having many different playstyle, and it all stems from APAC aggressiveness, KR utility macro, diff comps and the benefit of scrim CN teams in the region. Splitting Asia would reverse the effects of those benefits in which sent Asia back to pre partnership era.

Look at the second reply in this comment (asia is also SO much more developed in the valorant scene than pre partnership, we don't have to worry about them reversing back lol)

EMEA is weird cause only turkey got integrated to EMEA, no CIS (unfortunate) and MENA region org. Tier 2 is a mess but the top EMEA org benefit heavily and benefit by being more consistent due to less teams. Having stacked EMEA teams (12) will create different representative at internationals, which is why EMEA was better pre partnership instead of partnership era.

We currently do have 12 teams, where is the representation? Riot doesnt like saudi or russia, and anyways those regions get dominated in t2. Plus there are plenty of cis players in t1. Reverting to pre partnership is also not good for many regions again I mentioned earlier in the thread.

that issue with US being a non visa friendly to countries who aren't "first world countries" . A more concentrated South America specific league would just turn into Japan, won't be great internationally unless a LOUD superteam was formed. Venue relocation is better solution. South American teams scrimming NA teams is better for development like pacific and CN.

Literally again countered this point multiple times. Simply, these teams would have much more regional talent, wouldn't have to worry about other more dominant regions like kr or na, and they could still scrim with plenty of other good teams. For example, china was by far the most underdeveloped region by a significant margin, but giving them a condensed 12 team league allowed us to see other teams like wolves and te to flourish on the international stage

#70

GruntCrab

0

Frags

+

–

LOUD win champions playing in Brazil

#26

ynuser

0

Frags

+

–

Hear me out
China+Russia
Rest of EMEA

#28

Two_Percent

0

Frags

+

–

but most russian players live in/are from the euro part of russia, making russia combine with china wouldnt add any russian orgs, plus it would be a huge inconvenience for the russian players. Plus there arent any russian orgs rn anyways, and most russians prefer to play/have played for emea teams since forever

#29

Shadrach

0

Frags

+

–

Bro... china and mongolia bro.... mongolian talent is the real shit bro

#35

ynuser

1

Frags

+

–

They need a good structure first to develop their talent

#32

Bernazoka

0

Frags

+

–

take Los Grandes outa of there

#73

Two_Percent

0

Frags

+

–

literally one of the larger orgs in brazil and they are doing very well in br t2, why should i take them out

#34

ninjaturtle

1

Frags

+

–

Damn this is actually insane ngl

To add on, I would suggest the headquarters for the regional leagues as follows :

South America - Sao Paulo, Brazil
APAC - Bangkok, Thailand

NA, China, East Asia and EMEA's headquarters stay the same as it is now. Riot already gets a ton of money so building two more headquarters should be feasible for them in my opinion.

Also, instead of Los Grandes you can put in 2G / Red Canids and Fusion for E-Xolos Lazer for more org stability.

#37

Kinkz

0

Frags

+

–

This is really good but the issue here is it's impossible to keep the slots fair within regions and then equal between regions. What I mean is, EMEA stays the same basically and by no fault of their own have to lose out on 4 slots. APAC is good but it gives more to Indo and Thailand (even though these countries have proved to be more competitive than others in APAC it's important to give the other countries a chance as well) and not to mention we do need OCE representation in APAC. It seems a little scuffed that NA and SA get the same number of teams as the whole of APAC or EMEA.

#46

Two_Percent

0

Frags

+

–

My point is that other than china, emea is the only region where subregions dont really matter. across all 3 french teams, theres like 1 french player, and across all 3 spanish teams, there isnt a single spanish player. every single roster in english international, which is something that neither pacific or americas have. I explain this a lot more in #3 and #16. For the oce representation, yes is it important, but there are literally no big orgs and barely any players in oce, so idk what do do there, #4 thread kinda explains the situation perfectly. Also, Na + Sa have about the same playerbase relative to their population as apac and emea. The difference is that emea fans watch all the matches bc the region is much more homogeneous, whereas americas fans only really watch if a team from their subregion is playing. Plus china gets their own region completely to 1 country so ig its only fair that 2 continents can get their own individual regions as well. For the apac teams, sure you can change it around a bit but I think its only fair plus it makes the most sense to give subregions like Indo/Th/Mysg more teams as long as every other subregion has some representation, bc they have been consistently performing and thats where the actual orgs/money is.

#38

Sky1k

0

Frags

+

–

since when did furia didnt have visa problems

#40

Two_Percent

1

Frags

+

–

mb wording is weird, but in my proposed solution they wouldnt

#41

tong5

0

Frags

+

–

Best solution = no franchising

#45

Two_Percent

1

Frags

+

–

franchising gives more intensives for teams to invest in rosters bc it offers stability, viewership, and more fiscal opportunity for orgs while also keeping the scene much more manageable and operable for riot. plus a franchised league looks a lot better and way more professional than a non franchised league

#65

tong5

1

Frags

+

–

CS disagrees with you
You can have franchised teams that are absolutely useless and never compete, while top 2-3 teams destroy the league every single year

#68

Two_Percent

0

Frags

+

–

ok but the scene has mainly only grown for the better since franchising, the scene is much more stable, people watch a lot more regions/games that they normally wouldn't have, money is coming in much more, the scale is much grander, each region is much more consistent, etc.

#42

KEVINleneon

-3

Frags

+

–

L

#57

Two_Percent

0

Frags

+

–

whats your solution wise guy

#43

IceCreamFan

1

Frags

+

–

Is there any way to pin this post on the website? Cause goddamn this opinion has got me thinking really hard... Wonderful suggestion 👏🏽👏🏽

#52

BeastieBoys

0

Frags

+

–

I mean, if you think a region is "too big" then the pro league can just add more slots in tier 1. Some regions may only need 8 slots to accurately respersent their region and be competitive, some regions may need 12. All it does is allow for more players from that region to be picked up as exports (which is what has been going on for underrepresented sub-regions like NA since the start of franchising). The visa shit, expecially in America's, is so ass. It's gotten to the point where the SA talent pool is being so hurt developmentally. I'd imagine APAC is also slightly limited by having bad ping scrims with the higher quality teams all settled in korea, but don't quote me on that. I think it works.

Edit: Look at Pacific right now. Clearly the strongest region between multiple top East Asian and APAC rosters. It's not like these mfs would be ass if they were split. It isn't 2022 anymore where the NA and EMEA 5th seeds were better than an Asia champs team. yeah ik optic lost to xerxia but in terms of the larger competive scene, NA and EMEA were receiving ghe most slots and still being underrepresented. That isn't the same today. BBL vs Current form DFM isn't that crazy.

Also this would allow for a banging LCQ each year, so I'm down.

#56

Two_Percent

0

Frags

+

–

One thing I wanted to keep across all regions was team numbers. Giving more developed regions more teams only keeps them ahead, while less developed regions fall behind. And its not even like japan or brazil are nearly as bad as their t1 performances, some of the best players in the regions are from br and jp, its just that due to either having less slots, geographical issues, or other reasons, it doesn't make sense for them to continue fielding national rosters and developing local talent.

#54

aquaa018s_alterego

1

Frags

+

–

XSET return to valorant

#55

Two_Percent

0

Frags

+

–

I'm down

#58

GarbanzoEnjoyer

0

Frags

+

–

sa gets consistently cucked

I mean, the last two champs had 2 NA and 2 SA reps

#59

Two_Percent

0

Frags

+

–

Lev was more of an na team, and how far did kru go?

Also regionally almost all of na consistently beats almost all of sa

#60

GarbanzoEnjoyer

0

Frags

+

–

This has more to do with the incompetence of Brazilian orgs, leaving two to three teams that are just filler and get rolled in groups

KRÜ and a chosen Brazilian team are consistently competing for playoffs spot just like whichever 3 NA teams aren't shitting themselves

#61

Two_Percent

0

Frags

+

–

I mean this just goes to show then imagine if they had their own region, they could actually make internationals and be globally competitive

#62

GarbanzoEnjoyer

0

Frags

+

–

The only way this would benefit them is if it ends up solving the visa problem

It doesn't solve the problem of the best players getting poached or signed to different teams

#63

Two_Percent

1

Frags

+

–

I mean 8 sa teams that can quickly sign talent, plus no other region would sign more than a few at most sa players, that sounds good to me man. If at worst they never improve (even though its highly likely they would, look at chinese valorant glow up after they got their own region) then in my proposed system they would send less teams to masters 2, still have presence internationally but not clog up spots

#64

serot

-1

Frags

+

–

This is solving some problems by creating a couple new ones.

Talent dilution increases the more regions exist. More rosters than ever would be completely infeasible under import rules. Building a viable team becomes especially hard in countries with a lack of domestic talent. Countries with highly promising players get screwed over since their talent has less room in region to shine, especially with the proposed 8 teams per region.
The eight team per region design makes for a pathetic league system. Masters 1 is already universally considered Mickey Mouse for the pathetically small size of the tournament. Viewers already complain about the lack of matches to watch in valorant and this won’t help that on the regional level. Yes, this can be mitigated with bigger internationals like you implemented. However, regional viewership is still important. International tournaments don’t fit everyone’s time zones, but your regional games always will. Fan engagement for bad teams is healthy for a sustainable esports ecosystem, and if all the viewership is concentrated at the top level, the bottom will rot.
Champions stage is not viable. This would drag out champions to an unsustainably long timescale. Champions takes nearly a month already. Adding a round robin would put this past any reasonable timescale. Viewership for group stage will suffer. The only option would be to either run games together on two streams or run BO1s at the cost of making all the games at the event feel cheaper. Venue will be downgraded, probably with no live crowd.
China will dominate. The largest country in the world with the largest playerbase, vs regions that were smaller before but now even smaller, with talent diluted across them instead of concentrated. They can scrim every team in Asia, snag players with monster salaries, and maintain the largest talent pool while every other region breaks up.

#72

Two_Percent

0

Frags

+

–

Talent dilution increases the more regions exist.

Yes that is a valid point at first but if you look at the growth rate of china compared to every other region, it quickly disproves this argument. Kr is already oversaturating pacific with talent, and anyways the amount of their teams stays the same. Jp has plenty of domestic and t2 talent, already some of which are dominating t1, and the teams/viewership would only get better and better in t1 if they were given 2 more slots. Sa has a similar problem, except due to how americas works, sa teams have less time and resources to actually develop talent and try to build winning sa rosters.

More rosters than ever would be completely infeasible under import rules.

Most rosters (like >90%) will stay the same. The only rosters in this situation that would really change would be lev (which is good bc they would actually field a good sa roster instead of just signing na's scraps) and ge (they would have to unsign 2 of ban, udo, or kristal, which already looks likely after this season given how bad they are)

Building a viable team becomes especially hard in countries with a lack of domestic talent. Countries with highly promising players get screwed over since their talent has less room in region to shine, especially with the proposed 8 teams per region.

??? Splitting Sa from Na gives more Sa teams more opportunities to sign more Sa players, who are already proven to be top class. 8 teams per region for 6 regions is also the same amount of teams we have now, so it's not like theres going to be any less talent, its just going to be redistributed.

The eight team per region design makes for a pathetic league system. Masters 1 is already universally considered Mickey Mouse for the pathetically small size of the tournament. Viewers already complain about the lack of matches to watch in valorant and this won’t help that on the regional level. Yes, this can be mitigated with bigger internationals like you implemented. However, regional viewership is still important. International tournaments don’t fit everyone’s time zones, but your regional games always will. Fan engagement for bad teams is healthy for a sustainable esports ecosystem, and if all the viewership is concentrated at the top level, the bottom will rot.

People get fatigued with what we have now, and it's not like I'm cutting any games. If anything, look at my proposed schedule and you'll see that I gave multiple options for how league play could work depending on how many matches riot wanted to run in the regular season. Less teams per region doesnt mean less games, in fact it means the same amount if not more games plus more flexible time zones bc more regions. Also 8 is like a perfect number for brackets, and nobody would complain that a regular season trophy is mickey, since nobody cares about them rn anyways.

Champions stage is not viable. This would drag out champions to an unsustainably long timescale. Champions takes nearly a month already. Adding a round robin would put this past any reasonable timescale. Viewership for group stage will suffer. The only option would be to either run games together on two streams or run BO1s at the cost of making all the games at the event feel cheaper. Venue will be downgraded, probably with no live crowd.

Thats why I specified that champs is no longer just a tournament, it's a different entity. Again, this isn't a perfect solution, but riot could draw up way more hype in separating champs from masters and making it seem much larger by building it up more, and this would allow also for the actual playoffs stage (what people care about) to be way grander and pull in way more viewership.

China will dominate. The largest country in the world with the largest playerbase, vs regions that were smaller before but now even smaller, with talent diluted across them instead of concentrated. They can scrim every team in Asia, snag players with monster salaries, and maintain the largest talent pool while every other region breaks up.

Nothing is changing for them. If anything they will be at best equal to other regions, since emea will be more competitive as well, and regions that are already good such as kr and na getting their own regions would give them more teams/resources/talent to actually be more globally competitive. Other than that, china is the same man

#83

serot

-1

Frags

+

–

So you are arguing that talent dilution basically isn’t real? Making regions smaller does not make them more competitive at all. This is just a numbers game. Less people represented by a region means less talent for the region to draw from. On top of that if you expand the team slots for a certain region like SA, it’s not really helping their case as much as you think. Being able to sign more players is a moot point because what SA suffers from isn’t the inability to sign new talent. Expanding team slots just ensures that the top talent is redistributed across more teams rather than concentrating them into a select few.

The only reason China is behind right now is because they are facing multi national regions as a single nation with a lack of existing strong fps experience in esports. We have already seen EDG win champs, and yet other regions right now are only competitive with highly multinational teams or because they have a longer history in certain genres. China will catch up since they can scrim and easily recruit from APAC. And their growth as a region is easily unmatched in valorant so far. You want to weaken all of APAC and AMER by splitting the regions.

My mistake on the team viability part because I read the EMEA split proposal as part of your comment. Still a null point because it is canceled amount by the fact that keeping EMEA a single region is literally just giving them the CN treatment. Americas is gonna have to compete as a divided region vs the densely populated EMEA superteams by nature of having only the best of the best players crammed into a pathetically small 8 teams. If they play their cards right EMEA and CN can field multiple superteams year round with their incredibly deep talent pool.

The system you propose is remarkably similar to what league of legends had just a while back. And look what we have there. Americas was split into two regions, and both of them ended up being complete trash. Riot decided to merge them to make them more competitive. APAC was split into multiple fragmented regions and all of them failed to be properly competitive. They got merged to become more competitive. Meanwhile a unified European league and a powerful Chinese league achieved good results year after year. The only exception to this being Korea, where a strong esports culture and love for the game itself led to the formation of the most dominant league to date.

Your proposal is tried and tested, and the results were trash. That’s just the truth of the matter.

#92

Two_Percent

0

Frags

+

–

So you are arguing that talent dilution basically isn’t real? Making regions smaller does not make them more competitive at all. This is just a numbers game. Less people represented by a region means less talent for the region to draw from.

No, I'm arguing that South America's problem in vct is not "talent dilution," it's that geopolitically the odds are literally stacked against them. Also, 8 sa/na teams is more than 6, its just a numbers game. More people and more teams will be in the scene at any given time for both regions. More people represented by a region means more talent for the region to draw from.

On top of that if you expand the team slots for a certain region like SA, it’s not really helping their case as much as you think. Being able to sign more players is a moot point because what SA suffers from isn’t the inability to sign new talent. Expanding team slots just ensures that the top talent is redistributed across more teams rather than concentrating them into a select few.

Ok so you're just going back on your previous point now how bc there would be smaller regions there would be less available talent? Make your mind man, also look back on like 4 different threads in this post and I explain how all the issues with SA would be countered. I'm not going to explain it again just bc you have trouble understanding.

The only reason China is behind right now is because they are facing multi national regions as a single nation with a lack of existing strong fps experience in esports. We have already seen EDG win champs, and yet other regions right now are only competitive with highly multinational teams or because they have a longer history in certain genres. China will catch up since they can scrim and easily recruit from APAC. And their growth as a region is easily unmatched in valorant so far. You want to weaken all of APAC and AMER by splitting the regions.

What about wolves 3rd at toronto?? The fact of the matter is that Chinese teams were only behind bc they got the game/the scene a few years later than everyone, but giving them their own region allowed their growth to skyrocket. Apac and americas have the foundation already, but bc they are condensed into small regions, subregions like na and kr dominate and take resources due to location, geography, etc. Giving apac and sa room to grow while they still have resources would allow them to catch up.

Still a null point because it is canceled amount by the fact that keeping EMEA a single region is literally just giving them the CN treatment. Americas is gonna have to compete as a divided region vs the densely populated EMEA superteams by nature of having only the best of the best players crammed into a pathetically small 8 teams.

Insane how everyone says this but after reading #3 and #16 it suddenly makes a lot of sense. Not going to explain it again bc someone new made the same beaten point. Read other parts of the thread and you'll see why china and emea especially wouldn't dominate.

The system you propose is remarkably similar to what league of legends had just a while back. And look what we have there. Americas was split into two regions, and both of them ended up being complete trash. Riot decided to merge them to make them more competitive. APAC was split into multiple fragmented regions and all of them failed to be properly competitive. They got merged to become more competitive. Meanwhile a unified European league and a powerful Chinese league achieved good results year after year. The only exception to this being Korea, where a strong esports culture and love for the game itself led to the formation of the most dominant league to date.

I don't watch or care about league, but I do know that the east asians just locked down on it. Vct doesnt have regional dominance, and again splitting americas would only make each region stronger.

Your proposal is tried and tested, and the results were trash. That’s just the truth of the matter.

I wish it was tried or tested in valorant man, bc if so then this post wouldnt exist

#93

serot

0

Frags

+

–

So you are saying you will rather destroy the entire existing VCT ecosystem just to give South America its own region for visa issues? At this point it’s easier to just move the americas venue or split the league into two regional conferences that compete in an international qualifier.

I also think you don’t understand what happened when we gave China a region. They literally didn’t get their own region until the game released in China. Simply put the reason mainland China is getting better is in part due to the influx of player talent and money that comes with releasing a game. The rise of China is not mainly due to getting an official region, more so the official release of the game in the mainland led to orgs forming teams and investment to begin to flow. Even if riot kept its hands off the Chinese domestic scene, as long as they allowed qualification for internationals through some route we would inevitably see Chinese teams rise to the top with the power of domestic money and sponsorships.

Using this as a justification for fragmented regions supposedly being better is honestly nonsense. If anything the regional resources of existing regions are being split into smaller chunks and the quality of the regional fragments is lowered as well.

The Korean subregion doesn’t dominate because of any sort of resource advantage. Yes they have the visa and venue advantage, but APAC teams can all scrim each other relatively easily besides Oceania. Visa issues also are relatively uncommon. The real resource is just the size of the talent pool and that isn’t gonna change if you give them a region. Korea just has one of the world’s strongest gaming cultures to begin with. Point is, giving out new regions doesn’t magically make a region better off. If you put Korea and japan in the same region the Japanese teams aren’t suddenly going to get any better. If Japanese tier two is as held back by their region as you imply then why can they not make ascension?

The posts you point to do not prove anything. If anything, they prove that Europe already has a massive advantage in playerbase and in subregional player talent pool with the amount of flexibility they have to join teams. If you give it its own region while splitting others you are pitting still linguistically divided smaller regions against an extremely flexible and unified EMEA playerbase.

You just completely dismissed my very relevant league of legends example. Yes it’s not valorant and valorant doesn’t have regional dominance, but I’m sure if you implement the EXACT MISTAKES that league JUST STOPPED MAKING then the same result of regional dominance would occur. Riot runs consolidated regions because they work. League is moving away from fragmentation and towards consolidation already. Instead of learning from that you choose to make the same mistakes. Riot has teams of seasoned professionals working on these issues and it’s honestly outlandish that a nobody like you thinks that you have all the solutions. Riot doesn’t have a perfect system, but they have been running esports for almost two decades now. The mistakes they made are being learned from.

#94

Two_Percent

0

Frags

+

–

So you are saying you will rather destroy the entire existing VCT ecosystem just to give South America its own region for visa issues?

Destroy? I planned out a whole system that does nothing but make it more accessible for south american talent in vct. Change is not destruction my guy.

At this point it’s easier to just move the americas venue or split the league into two regional conferences that compete in an international qualifier.

Yes, that would be easier, but for continuity I want to make each region have equal opportunity as much as possible, so that unlike league or cs one region won't dominate. My solution would take effort, time, and money, but in the long run contribute a lot more to the health of the vct ecosystem in making sure that teams from across the globe invest in valorant instead of just leaving bc na and kr start dominating and taking their spots.

I also think you don’t understand what happened when we gave China a region. They literally didn’t get their own region until the game released in China. Simply put the reason mainland China is getting better is in part due to the influx of player talent and money that comes with releasing a game. The rise of China is not mainly due to getting an official region, more so the official release of the game in the mainland led to orgs forming teams and investment to begin to flow. Even if riot kept its hands off the Chinese domestic scene, as long as they allowed qualification for internationals through some route we would inevitably see Chinese teams rise to the top with the power of domestic money and sponsorships.

Yes, sure in part that is true, but them having their own region skyrocketed growth exponentially, as their entire region is one country all with players that speak one language without fighting over slots with other players. Sa and apac have the potential to do the same, as they are also slow start regions like china was, but their resources being allocated more towards kr and na makes it hard for them to grow. I really don't think you have read any of this thread and you are just speaking out of your ass for the sake of disagreeing.

I have spelt all my points out clear as day, yet you refuse to even comprehend what I'm saying. I'm not going to respond to anymore of your reply, because frankly its just slop, and you just write the same points over and over again, that I have reiterated 5x in this thread and 10x in every other thread. If you want to keep being ignorant, you do you, because yes change can be scary, but don't pretend like I don't know what I'm saying just because you have trouble understanding it.

#95

serot

-1

Frags

+

–

Crazy because you don’t actually respond to half my points while I made an effort to address everything you said? You say you already went over all this but quite frankly none of what you said feels like an actual direct counter to what I say.

And yes, blowing up the entire APAC region and downsizing every other region just so South America can not have visa and scrim issues feels like destroying the existing system to me over a single regions issues.

You speak of resources being allocated unfairly in the current region system, but I would like you to tell me exactly what those resources are and how they are being allocated in favor of other subregions. The only advantages I can think of are scrim and visa advantages. You are just mindlessly talking about mysterious resources given by separate regions with zero actual basis in reality.

If you ask for criticism but can’t accept when your plan falls apart under scrutiny then it sounds like you weren’t coming into this with an open mind to begin with. You act like you give proper responses but then reference threads that basically have nothing to do with what I said and say you already explained this. Feels like the one that’s not reading is you.

#86

serot

0

Frags

+

–

Also forgot to mention that your so called separate champions stage doesn’t change anything. It’s not like you can run the regionals while the champions stage is ongoing, so for all intents and purposes it is just a long ass group stage for champs. You still need to fly out players and reserve some sort of venue even if it is smaller. It’s basically the same as the champions we have with a longer format.

#91

Two_Percent

0

Frags

+

–

yeah I mean you're right, except it would happen after the regional stage. They would still have to rent out a venue, and it would still be a champs group stage but longer, but it would allow for much more international games (which we dont get enough of) and allow for the buildup to champs to be way more hype.

Again, I am not a tournament organizer, and the main reason I made it this way to be honest was to compensate for 6 regions. If you have a better solution, I would be down to change how champs would work, but otherwise this is the way that has the most upsides for me.

#66

EndMePleaseUwU

0

Frags

+

–

Bring Mexican Orgs in NA like Chivas, Xolos, 6Karma

#69

Two_Percent

0

Frags

+

–

I did include xolos

#80

EndMePleaseUwU

0

Frags

+

–

Aren't technically competing in NA tho since they scrim more with NA teams

#96

Two_Percent

0

Frags

+

–

Oh idk that

putting them under sa tho would prob not change their results that much tho

also arent they a columbian team? at least that's what their flag on vlr is

#97

EndMePleaseUwU

0

Frags

+

–

The Org is Mexican, The team are mixture of central and South America

#71

oriole

2

Frags

+

–

Honestly I was thinking of the exact same thing, you just put it into an articulate post, so thanks for that.

One thing I'd mention is APAC should be extended to include OCE as it is currently, so if a cracked player from these parts joins Tier 1, they can slot into an APAC team without taking up an import slot, and eventually if an OCE org steps up they could take up one of the team slots.

Another thing would be to extend SA to the entirety of LATAM so the region can include the Central American countries as well.

#75

Two_Percent

0

Frags

+

–

I mean yeah ideally oce gets a slot, but I've mentioned this earlier in the thread the achievements/teams/talent of oce just isnt there yet compared to th/mysg/indo, and so it makes more sense to invest in those before oce, but I do hope oce can get a proper org and players and actually look competitive

and yes SA should include all of latam, but I do think some distinctly Na latam countries like mexico should be non import in both regions

#74

rosso4000

0

Frags

+

–

seeing "MITH" in apac is crazy lol, unfortunately they pulled out. PRX, TLN, RRQ, TS, GE, (and then maybe some top APAC teams rn like, BME, Motiv and NAOS)

#78

Two_Percent

0

Frags

+

–

Yeah maybe they could pull an envy and comeback lol, but really any big sea org could fill that slot (unfortunately motiv and naos are very new very small orgs and unlikely to be part of t1 other than through ascension)

#79

Ailed

1

Frags

+

–

is this going to double viewership/revenue?

you are effectively arguing justifying doubling the operational costs (at least).

i just dont see a world where this is profitable at all for riot, id like to think a system similar to this was considered when franchising was considered and shut down for obvious reasons.

bottom line riot is a business and each org is a business, money isnt spawned in, thats the unfortunate reality here. i dont even know if all these slots could be filled, smaller orgs arent going to be willing to throw themselves into a league that is very possibly not going to make them money

#87

Two_Percent

1

Frags

+

–

I mean yes, it is going to be way more costly for riot but idk jack about business, I'm just a vct fan who wants peak watching experience man

#81

A1pha1

-2

Frags

+

–

I think its dumb idea to divide Americas into two regions. Talent is already diluting in South American teams to the point that LEV, MIBR and LOUD are transitioning to English speaking roster. (LEV is basically NA team at this point) Furia cant find a talent that can compete in tier1 for 3 years now and there is a lack of good igls across the whole region.
The reason why APAC&China caught up so fast to the West is they scrim each other lots, with dividing Americas both regions would be isolated and would play catch up forever
You might argue talent pool is draining because they are not scrimming with top teams but if this argiment were true LATAM teams wouldve won Ascencion or be one of the favourites but they are considered the worst region despite being able to scrim both NA tier1 teams (with 40-60 ping) and some Brazilian teams. Also brazilian teams scrim other brazilian tier 2 teams in the off-season but still nothing is changing

#88

Two_Percent

0

Frags

+

–

Talent is sa is diluting not because those regions are bad and have no talent to offer (look at br/latam t2, some of those players are pretty insane), but because visa issues are so bad that simple roster moves have to be planned months ahead. Unlike na, sa teams cant just drop a player 2 weeks before a split and pick a new one up, bc scrimming over long distances, flying players in, and getting visas is very costly and difficult to do. Also, a brazilian team literally won ascension last year?? So idk what your point is about that if there is talent, that they would be winning, also e-xolos are favorites to win this year btw. And btw, off season scrims mean nothing when your offseason is cut into only a short period of time bc of visas, people only scrim in the offseason to see if the roster can play together normally, not to slowly build and tweak them to have a chance at winning champs like every other region can.

#82

derp64

0

Frags

+

–

6 regions will be way too expensive. I would be down for this, only because it means more VCT to watch, but realistically it will never happen.

#89

Two_Percent

0

Frags

+

–

:( a man can dream tho

#84

revokeshoots

0

Frags

+

–

I agree with SA + NA split but now the question comes, where do you hold SA so they can still scrim against NA teams AND SA t2 teams...?

#90

Two_Percent

0

Frags

+

–

I mean out of all the issues, this is the one that can't really be accounted for that much. Either hold it in northern south america, let there be some ping when scrimming, or just keep scrims regional, which is not nearly as bad as it sounds bc giving sa its own region would allow talent to develop so fast that it wouldnt be that big of a deal missing out on na scrims. I feel like the trade off tho would be well worth it

#85

eStos

1

Frags

+

–

yes

#98

ninjaturtle

0

Frags

+

–

I'm just looking at this and thinking "Man Plat Chat episodes would be like 6 hours long every week" LOL