After the results of this year, 2025 is set up to be the absolute best year of competitive Valorant we'll ever see. Here's why
EMEA
After Heretics became far and away the most successful EMEA team of the year and a literal Premier team came one map away from winning Ascension, I expect EMEA orgs to finally let go of the recycled 2021 or CS talent and go all in on young T2 players, and will finally give unproven IGL's a shot after seeing how successful Boo was despite being seen as mediocre at best before hand, and this'll work absolutely perfectly with the insane amount of coaching talent in EMEA to finally bring the region to the level it should be, as well as finally getting rid of the washed players riding on past achievements to keep themselves in the league.
Pacific
Pacific won it's first ever trophy, with Gen.G finally showing that Pacific teams could adopt a winning style, and interest in Valorant has skyrocketed, especially in Korea. Valorant's risen t the second most played game at LAN cafes in Korea, just behind LOL. This is an amazing sign for the talent development in the region on top of the fact that 2 of the most talked about players from Pacific this year were primmie and Karon, literal ranked players, showing that the scene is very much producing fresh talent as well as catching up in terms of FPS experience, which is what they lacked in comparison to EMEA and Americas at the start of Valorant. Pacific's Ascension is still going on but honestly the quality of play in Ascension is absurdly impressive, with BME, FS and SPG all looking absolutely tier 1 ready.
China
Not only did EDG prove that that China could win a trophy, the other Chinese teams that most people had probably brushed off proved that the region had multiple teams that could do damage internationally, especially FPX and TE, and interest in the scene has skyrocketed much like Korean interest in Valorant, with China drawing in the biggest viewership numbers and their ascension tournament being filled with insane levels of talent.
Americas
Americas continued on as the most complete region of the 4, with 2 teams in the top 4 of each tournament. SEN showed that NA was as strong as ever. KRU and LEV both had great showings and really demonstrated that LATAM is very much alive and can compete with NA. And while Brazil didn't have the best showing in T1, 2G just won Ascension, which paired with GLRS' excellent showing demonstrates that the Brazilian scene can still succeed, they just need to stop recycling talent and invest in fresh players, similar to EMEA.
And overall, the stranglehold that old cores from 2021 and 2022 had on the game seemed to finally disappear, with the old cores everyone expected to be successful like NAVI, DRX, FNC, NRG/OpTic core, DRX, Loud and (unfortunately) PRX fizzling out and losing to newly formed teams, finally showing that the scene is evolving from it's formative years.
VCT 2025 is gonna be insane, and I can't wait
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