TLDR: This describes a potential future solution for the VCT slots using the CSGO, 3 stage swiss system. This only works if the points system is reasonable. VCT 2021 had a completely unbalanced circuit points system where qualifying for LANs was basically an instant qualification for masters or LCQ because there were so many points and barely missing out gave you almost no points.
The Slots Problem: There has been a lot of discussion about the regional slot allocation for VCT 2022. The biggest focus has been on the minor regions getting a ton of spots that people don't think are deserved. I think the primary problem is having only 12 teams at the masters events. The 2021 LCQ setup was pretty good and I would like to see at least a 16 team distribution every LAN. It has been proposed to have larger cross regional qualifiers, but assuming that is unfeasible for logistical reasons, I am proposing a different solution for Champions.
CSGO Majors: CSGO has used a 24 team 3 stage swiss system for quite a while and in 2021 they had to use a circuit points method of selecting those teams which makes it a much better comparison. The bottom 16 teams participate in a Swiss system to select the top 8 of them to move on, and as an added bonus there is a lot of seeding that can happen instead of random seeding. The 8 that move on go through another 16 team swiss stage against the top 8 teams and the 8 that progress from that go to the playoffs. The regional slots would be quite different in Valorant but in CSGO it was: Top 8: EU1, EU2, EU3, CIS1, CIS2, NA1, NA2, NA3, Next 8: EU4-9, NA4, CIS3, Bottom 8: EU10, EU11, NA5, CIS4, CIS5, SA1, OCE1, Asia1.
Seeding in Valorant: Valorant has much more participation and competitiveness from minor regions than CSGO so the slots would be different. My recommended format would be the top 16 teams be decided by regional circuit points and the bottom 8 to be decided from regional LCQ's. My distribution would be Top 8: EMEA1, EMEA2, EMEA3, NA1, NA2, BR1, KR1, SEA1. Next 8: EMEA4, EMEA5, NA3, NA4, BR2, LATAM1, SEA2, JP1. Bottom 8 LCQ's: EMEA{2}, NA{1}, SA(BR+LATAM){2}, APAC(JP+KR+SEA+OCE+southasia){3}
This ends up with a regional distribution of EMEA:7, NA:5, SA:5, APAC:7. For people who think that APAC has too many slots, it has a ton of combined regions similar to EMEA.
Pros: More teams means less inequality in slots. More teams is better entertainment.
Cons: More teams is harder to set up a LAN for. Regional points are never going to be perfectly balanced so by the time Champions comes around people will dislike the distribution.
The Points Problem: If VCT 2022 keeps the same regional points structure as 2021 this system WONT WORK. For example, if you look at the Circuit Points from 2021, simply qualifying for a regional LAN guaranteed you so many more points that a team that just missed the qualification. In EMEA Stage 3, a team that placed 5th got 50 points and a team that placed 4th got at least 175. I understand that you want to count wins against international competition more, but the jump from barely missing out to qualifying but not even beating anyone at LAN should not be 3.5 times the points. Placing really well at the LANs should be worth a lot but the base points given for qualification were stupid and completely mess up the circuit as fluke teams get valued so much greater than consistently good but not quite great teams.
Points needs to follow the following conditions: 1) More points are awarded for events later in the year closer to champions. 2) Consistent performance across many qualifiers without a breakout performance is enough to at least get into the LCQ. 3) Winning a cross regional LAN by itself is enough points to at least make the LCQ. 4) If regions play separately but are combined for things like the LCQ, the tournament structure and points need to be coordinated to not favor one over the other. Regional slots in smaller cross regional events can help but does not completely mitigate this problem. 5) There are enough events that give points to make it less random. Both CSGO and Valorant only had 3 circuit events in 2021 and this was not good for the balance of points. Hopefully the VRL events are balanced well enough to help with this.
Feel free to discuss or debate anything I talked about here. I do not believe the current slot distribution is terrible but it absolutely could be better and this is just one way to help with that.
Discord