Riot shares vision for 2024 Challenger Leagues

#1

beenchilling

40

Frags

+

–

Allat
But i read and i think Premier will become a very good thing in the coming future for the tier 2 and tier 3 its just like how it works in cod mobile and codm and cuz of Premier the nutty cracked snus induced kids will have a platform to showoff themself to the world..

#2

geometrix

17

Frags

+

–

good article

#3

kaninv

37

Frags

+

–

qwertyy bronze to Premier Promotion redemption arc incoming

#4

eggsalt

16

Frags

+

–

I read all that

#5

FDWC-

-21

Frags

+

–

kill the tier 2 scene already

#24

samhatts

21

Frags

+

–

You want the team you support to be killed?

#6

Subwaywang

27

Frags

+

–

I think its a big problem for tier two teams to be seen only as a "way-station" and nothing more. It doesn't give orgs incentive to stay in the tier two region longer than a season, and basically if you don't proceed to VCT its seen as a failure and a poor investment. I don't expect many more orgs to re-invest into the tier 2 scene after this, more work should be done to make it more marketable and more appealing for teams to still be in there considering how difficult it is to get to tier 1

#10

AkameBurst

1

Frags

+

–

They did say that they want to work on the viewship as it's necessary to keep the scene alive and sustainable. I don't think they said how they'd do it tho unless I missed smth

#25

sdgdfdrgdrfgdrgdrfttdhy

1

Frags

+

–

what? u good? that's just the nature of t2 esports. t2 will never be more than a stepping stone because anything more would compete with t1 viewership. Even if events aren't held at the same time any given person only has so much time they're willing to spend watching val and if the move more of that to t2 it will harm t1. It will either harm t1 or be a money sink to make it worth the orgs time. Some will stay many will leave thats just t2. These changes will make it so less leave and sponsorship allow t1 orgs to help support the system. That's about as good as it can get until esports get waaaaaaaaaay bigger.

#26

jamONE

0

Frags

+

–

yep, compare college basketball vs NBA. there's always going to be more people viewing the highest level of competition

#80

sdgdfdrgdrfgdrgdrfttdhy

0

Frags

+

–

i mean tbh t2 wishes it was college basketball. esports are so small rn its like t1 is college basketball and t2 is high school 💀.

#81

jamONE

0

Frags

+

–

facts lol

#27

eggsalt

0

Frags

+

–

Tier 2 starting to look like "Tier 1 Premiere"

#7

benjy

7

Frags

+

–

If young metro don't trust you he gon' shoot you

#8

hekzy

33

Frags

+

–

nt leo faria but you killed tier2 when you allowed for a single transfer window year long. And let me explain:

Tier2 teams have a few choices when it comes to revenue in a franchise league game. It's either the tier2 is stable enough in terms of viewership and sponsorships that by competing alone, they have income. This is currently not happening, and that's why plenty of orgs are dropping.

The other choice is selling their players to tier1 clubs. But that is also impossible, as the only transfer window is at the end of the season. By then, either your contracts have ran out, and the tier1 teams get the players for free. OR you're risking on paying wages for a roster that won't play for another 6 months. And many teams choose to drop their players and save those 5x6 wages instead of hoping some team will splash the bag for them. And then you don't even know if they'll come back to the game.

#9

kaninv

3

Frags

+

–

not wrong at all

#11

canyon

1

Frags

+

–

It will be fixed from next year
Partnered teams will have a more flexible transfer window as well as the mobility of players from challenger leagues to tier 1 will be increased... So Rare Leo Faria W

#15

hekzy

1

Frags

+

–

Where did you read that? Still one transfer window at the end of the season with 6 months of inactivity. Literally nothing has changed. Where did you read any of that?

#40

Injonc

0

Frags

+

–

"The second change is related to player mobility. Aiming to see more players moving between the layers of our sport, we’ve decided to allow teams in the International Leagues to build an affiliate relationship with Challenger League teams, as well as create a new player loan system. The new structure will enable teams to exchange players more freely, with the goal of seeing the resources from the top of the pyramid support Tier 2 player development." in the blog post by Leo Faria

#42

hekzy

2

Frags

+

–

That's vague as fuck and it most likely means there will be Academy teams. "Affiliate relationships"

#43

Zerphyr1

0

Frags

+

–

no it just means that franchised teams can chose what tier 2 teams they wan't to "partner with" which is probably a very easy process. These tier 1 teams can borrow the players from their tier 2 partnered teams at whatever time they want for a tournament or in the regular season ect...

#50

hekzy

2

Frags

+

–

That's exactly how academy teams work....

#51

Zerphyr1

-1

Frags

+

–

so it's a good change then?

#75

Emmy_TOF

0

Frags

+

–

No , it delusion
didn't you saw TSM disband

#76

Zerphyr1

0

Frags

+

–

yes? ur point?

#12

FreedomFighter

11

Frags

+

–

Ez Fix: scrap franchising

#20

BrotherMan

16

Frags

+

–

Ruined Val esports in a lot of ways

#22

sj67atg6

12

Frags

+

–

no one learned from overwatch

#23

donut2612

-2

Frags

+

–

its not franchising.

#28

kapteN

5

Frags

+

–

It absolutely is

#30

donut2612

0

Frags

+

–

its partnership where the orgs are selected and paid by riot to join as opposed to franchising (like owl) where the orgs pay 20 mil to blizzard to join.

#45

Zerphyr1

0

Frags

+

–

Nah i think its good from an org perspective but it can be complicated and risky for the scene. The organisations will probably be losing not that much money or even gaining money with this season as long as they don't overpay the players like they do in NA. This tackles probably the biggest issue with esports.

#13

Warlordwibz

4

Frags

+

–

Ascension gonna be held AFTER champions. Meaning earliest September... Does 3/4 months even enough to get VISA to reside in Partnership country? Leo Faria says Brazil players need 6 months of VISA which is why Ascension is held in Brazil. Indian players fat chance getting visa in that amount of time, Skrossi and Lightningfast was hella late to regular season. Only G7 and Schengen countries are safe from this.

#16

hekzy

3

Frags

+

–

Hahahahah I hadn't even thought of that. Man is that dude a clown

#14

h786

0

Frags

+

–

if you placed a money pyramid side by side, you would see an inverted pyramid, since all the money goes at the top, and little to nothing is being spent on the grass roots.

#47

Zerphyr1

-2

Frags

+

–

4/8 bait

#63

h786

0

Frags

+

–

how am i wrong.

#17

mon471

-2

Frags

+

–

Imagine VCT partner teams loaning an entire iNd0 SUpErTeAm. Unimaginable

#18

Envoy

0

Frags

+

–

great text. Gj

#19

kfox

10

Frags

+

–

This isn't it. Tier 2 cannot be seen has a simply a "way point to t1" cuz that means it's not sustainable for teams and players. If it's not sustainable, teams and players will not want to play and invest. Meaning that t2 can't act as a "way point".

Also, there's only going to be one point each year where players can possibly get promoted. So talent might leave if they don't get promoted one of 5 NA teams (sorry for NA bias) cuz they can't pay their bills. I'm sorry but this makes no sense to me.

This Leo guy seems a bit disconnected.

#31

jieuny

2

Frags

+

–

In anything ever "tier 2" will always be a waypoint to "tier 1"

Minors to MLB
College/G league to NBA
EFL to Prem

When there is a higher level of competition, it will always be used as a stepping stone and people will always be more interested in the highest level, you just cant change that.

#32

kfox

0

Frags

+

–

Yes it should be a stepping stone. The problem is that they look at it in an unsustainable way imo. Players can't justify playing in the league cuz they might not be able to pay their bills. So val loses talent

#48

Zerphyr1

0

Frags

+

–

they shouldn't be making a living playing in tier 2 I think. Only NA tier 2 players can make enough money to live from it unless your someone from APAC or EMEA that just barely spends any money

#77

kfox

1

Frags

+

–

I agree, but they need to making living playing in t2 cuz there is only one time a year for franchise teams to make roster changes. Yay ( I don't want to discuss whether or not he deserves franchising) is a good example. He got locked out of franchising and literally could not join another team. He could've had to leave val cuz he wasn't getting a livable wage. This, talent will leave the game. This is like kinda a problem with franchising in general I believe.

#79

Zerphyr1

1

Frags

+

–

ye. I agree, they just need a better system so teams can acquire players mid season or change their reason shortly after a tournament for example but currently they have to wait half a year to change their team which is not ideal.

#65

mino

-1

Frags

+

–

You have delusional standards for an esport. Low-tier traditional sports are sustainable because the simple act of going to watch it in person is the very anti-thesis to going online, which people seem to be 24/7 nowadays. Not to mention the traditional sports themselves being embedded in the educational system, and promoted in the natal phases of youth development. Not to mention decades-long tribalism that spur people to support their local sporting efforts.

T2 Valorant will never have such privileges, and before trying to make orgs "sustainable", let's try to make them at least incentivised.

#78

kfox

0

Frags

+

–

I think you're right about all this but I still think it needs to be sustainable in order for talent to come up and rise into franchising. That's kinda why I have higher standards for it. If it was an open circuit, I would not care

#61

KyLZi

0

Frags

+

–

Why is being a waypoint to t1 not sustainable?

Also, the league will start promoting 2 teams a year from challengers, however, that's not much better but not everyone can be in T1 either.

#21

KOMPOSTO

-1

Frags

+

–

when the so called "tier 2" teams are better than some "tier 1" aka franchised teams kek

#29

kapteN

-1

Frags

+

–

CS esport is one of the healthiest in esport history.

Volvo has just restricted events from inviting only partnered teams, so tier2 and tier3 can thrive better. Community is happy.

What does riot do when they see this success? The opposite.

Orgs will be leaving T2, salaries for T2 players will drop and the talent pool will shrink as T2-T3 players will leave as soon as any other game comes out (hello CS2)

#33

JokesOver

2

Frags

+

–

Eu community =/ world . Its funny seeing only the eu frogs saying cs is a healthy esport. When in reality valve killed asian cs

#34

kapteN

-2

Frags

+

–

how did valve kill asian CS? By giving them free slots to majors which they still didn't do anything with?

The reason NA cs is not big is because they progressively got worse, and since they were worse there was less viewership. Not valve's fault

#35

JokesOver

1

Frags

+

–

All they had to do was fix the matchmaking. Which is the first step to gather the playerbase. It is still shit as an asian to play cs on official matchmaking to this day

#36

kapteN

-1

Frags

+

–

What's shit about it? EU uses Faceit, why doesn't asia use it?

#37

JokesOver

0

Frags

+

–

Lmao you know nothing about asian gaming community then

#38

kapteN

0

Frags

+

–

I don't know what you're talking about indeed, that's why I'm asking.

What's so shit about it?

#39

JokesOver

1

Frags

+

–

Matchmaking is impossible to plau because of bots and cheaters. They insta kick new players trying to get into the game. And no one knows about 3rd party services

#49

Alova02

-1

Frags

+

–

Valve didn't kill asian CS directly. However they have left it to rot. All Majors, and nearly all tier 1 events has been held mostly in the EU beside a few in NA and SA. CSGO was thriving really well in SEA with it being the most popular FPS on PC for years, yet there was barely any strong teams if none coming out from the scene, with the sole reason being the absolute lack of support or investment into the region from Valve. even NA CS got threw to the sideline due to again, a lack of investment into the region. Yes there was a few major or tier 1 events in NA, however the amount looks puny when u compare to just how much tournaments and investment were thrown into EU instead. NACS got worse not just because EU had a larger talent pool, it got worse because Top NA teams had to completely relocate to EU just to keep up with the competition, or risk falling farther behind, leaving an even bigger drought for NACS talents and teams.

#53

kapteN

0

Frags

+

–

Valve has nothing to do with Tier 1 tournaments and investing in them. There only is investment in Majors, of which there were 5 out of 14 tournaments in NA since 2015 when the scene actually became more mature.

Besides that, your argument is moot, as the presence (or lack thereof) of major tournaments in Asia was never a problem - Asian teams had their own qualifiers to get to the major, wherever that major was. There were, and are, always Asian teams at every single major.

To your point about NA teams having to relocate to EU to keep up with competition - the competition was simply higher in EU. If NA teams wanted to stay relevant, they needed to scrim with EU teams cause NA talent was simply not as good. It had nothing to do with the tournament density.

The reduction in tournament density was a RESULT of the lacking talent in the region, not the CAUSE.

#72

KyLZi

0

Frags

+

–

CS lost its casual community here and the player pop dropped super low. New games/ the lack of attention by Valve didn't help. With CS2 we may see NA CS be back for a few years or at least people here will be interested in it for a few years.

#46

crashhacker1

-2

Frags

+

–

what? partnered teams = franchising, both are the same.

#52

kapteN

2

Frags

+

–

Read my post again. Valve is starting to PROHIBIT tournament organizers from only inviting partnered teams.

They're literally doing the opposite of what Riot is doing.

#54

crashhacker1

-2

Frags

+

–

Valve is starting to PROHIBIT tournament organizers from only inviting partnered teams.

yeah next year, which is about 7 years now they had partnered system inviting teams to events for 7 years, and you're crying about riot's franchised with not even 1 year in? hypocrite. They can move away from it now BECAUSE they established stability.

#56

kapteN

2

Frags

+

–

Partnered events only started in 2020 and there was only one, Blast Premier.

The scene was already mature/stable starting from realistically 2015. It took another 5 years before the first partnered league started. The next ones came years later. Valve's response time of 3 years since the first one is very long, but this is valve we're talking about. Changes that needed to happen within the year take triple the amount.

Valve is so hands-off as a dev that seeing them prohibit this after an honest 1-2 years of it being in full swing is a big sign to other dev teams.

Additionally, the valve-sponsored majors were NEVER partnered. It was only ever 3rd party tournament organizers that had partnered leagues. No matter how good a T2 team is in Valorant, they can never make it to masters/champions. In CS they can. GamerLegion (ranked #31 in the world at the time of the major, and #60 only in October '22) went 2nd place in the latest Paris major. In Valorant they would never have a shot at that.

You show you have no idea what you're talking about.

#58

crashhacker1

-2

Frags

+

–

It was only ever 3rd party tournament organizers that had partnered leagues.

which are the biggest ones and called majors. how are majors where teams are invited better than franchised teams in valorant?

yeah, I can point out ZETA and KRU the same way, they made runs BUT that still doesnt matter when the majors in CS can invite teams instead of an open circuit. Its similar to saying CSGO has a large playerbase but when I get technical about it, I can dismantle that argument by saying its mostly played on FACEIT (a third party program) than CSGO's own MM.

You see how "third party" doesnt work, you hypocritical fuck.

#60

JokesOver

-2

Frags

+

–

Dont argue with him.. he thinks EU = world

#68

kapteN

1

Frags

+

–

He’s factually wrong on several things.

We’re not even talking about EU vs other regions. The formats he’s describing and the arguments are simply factually, provably wrong.

#62

Ic1

1

Frags

+

–

There's no invited teams at Major at all. Tournamets with invites like EPL Pro League or Blast Circuits aren't Majors.
There's invites to quals to Major (only half teams tho, other places goes to open quals) based on results on past Major and I think we can agree that's reasonable

#64

crashhacker1

-2

Frags

+

–

of course its more reasonable, I do agree Im just saying valorant does not have anywhere close to that stability yet. Can we agree some stability is needed, you cant have open circuit & stability simultaneously. They have to make a choice. I just think a relegation/promotion would improve the system even more since teams like DFM/KC/SEN/Talon/GE and a couple more, keep running troll comps and look like they dont put much thought into their rosters and they still wont be punished for it.

#66

Ic1

1

Frags

+

–

Imo franchising is cancer. Most teams are just stagnating and have no reason to grow. Invite system could give some stability, let's just invite top teams to event and give quater/half the places to open quals - teams like DFM/Sen/Talon/etc would have to evolve to be able to attend events and therefore they'll get better.

#69

kapteN

1

Frags

+

–

Make that point without throwing in false claims then.

You automatically get people to disregard what you’re trying to get through by using false claims to achieve the point.

#67

kapteN

3

Frags

+

–

Majors never invited teams.

Keep proving you don’t know what you’re talking about.

#71

crashhacker1

-1

Frags

+

–

Majors never invited teams.

https://twitter.com/g2niko/status/1646904104923406336

I like how some people are saying that we are PRIVILIGED and LUCKY to be part of all Tier1 events, and that Tier2/3 teams have to grind so hard to get there.

during paris major btw

here's more invited teams who "deserve" to be there even though they didnt perform in years - https://www.fragster.com/all-teams-invited-to-blast-tv-paris-major-rmr-closed-qualifiers/

#73

kapteN

1

Frags

+

–

Yes there are closed qualifiers based on RATING.

but more importantly, there are also OPEN qualifiers. That's what valorant doesn't have.

You miss the point yet again.

#74

crashhacker1

-1

Frags

+

–

based on RATING

Another argument that I can destroy with numbers. Just check the ratings in each region and see what teams they have.

https://i.imgur.com/hM6a395.png

look at the top 10 of EMEA/NA here, now we come back to franchised teams in that top 10. Only 4 franchised teams are in top 10 for both regions. Guess how many teams are selected to fight for masters after regional leagues, that's right - 4.

sauce - https://www.vlr.gg/rankings

So, riot "invited" the other 6 teams for "qualifiers", in this case the regional leagues to qualify for masters/champs. same with Ascension/challengers teams are still in the ranking. This year GUARD plays the open qualifiers for masters because they beat all tier 2 teams. The point is, these ratings will not change much for top teams which dominated through the year, because one good tourney averages out your 4 other bad tourneys that isnt reflected in this ratings system.

Franchising didnt give them free master's or champs spot while blast paris major actually invited teams directly to playoffs in a major while avoiding qualifiers, tagging them as legends stage. I can actually argue that riot here is more fair than csgo in terms of partnered teams in majors but I dont want to shatter your csgo utopia so I'll just stick with both games having similar systems but you're an hypocrite so you find fault in one but not in the other.

ofc it has its faults, which a relegation/promotion would solve BUT to argue csgo is better when they themselves ran this system for 5+ years and have still not scrapped it yet (they will next year). come on now

continue thread →

#41

Liem

0

Frags

+

–

Here before The Guestslot wins champions

#44

crashhacker1

0

Frags

+

–

People hating on franchising not realizing counter strike ran partnered teams system since 5-6 years and it will end next year bringing it to 7 years before they scrap it. It sucks for Tier 2 but an FPS game cannot survive without temporary stability. You idiots really dont understand how much "less" money there is in esports. The system works but the only thing they are missing is relegation/promotion of teams so there is more incentive than clout. Clout is a factor in CSGO too, see how many top underperforming teams get invited to BLAST events every year while getting grouped in each of them.

Have some patience.

#57

kapteN

2

Frags

+

–

Nt, the first partnered league was blast premier in 2020, roughly 5 years after the scene was already stable.

Don't listen to this guy, he doesn't know what he's talking about.

#59

crashhacker1

-2

Frags

+

–

you just said in my other post "THEY DONT INVITE TEAMS, ONLY THIRD PARTY TOURNAMENTS DO". if you want to get technical and argue semantics, be my guest but blast and intel IEM invite teams which have no business to be in the tournament. These events get the most viewership, they are called majors. This has been happening in CS for 5-6 years now. You want to argue semantics with "but but third party", then be my guest.

#70

kapteN

3

Frags

+

–

Flat out wrong.

Majors don’t have team invites.

#55

AiSouksaiphone

0

Frags

+

–

RIP