Quite of an upsurge after the game got approved

By that they are now the highest follower count across all VCT twitter, only behind the Central VCT account

(By China Standards it is still a long way to go, they need to break 1 million to not consider small. CrossFire for example is at 2.9M)

Their goal is replicating CrossFire

even in other games CN had things like Doge Delivery logo

Theres probably even a lot more, I think around nearly a dozen from this/last year's FGC that didnt got into this qualifier

https://twitter.com/subzidite2/status/1662381707759329281
Also trademark to every Chinese Esports scene under either Riot or Tencent: Banger chinese-styled artworks that isnt seen in other regions

16 Teams that hasnt qualified for the Main Champions CN Qualifier will played in a Pre-Qualifier here to determine 8 teams joining EDG ASE FPX BLG in the Main CN Qualifier

The format here for Pre Qual is simple: BO3 SWISS

CN Name of the tournament is 无畏契约全球冠军赛CN赛区资格赛 (Fearless Contract Global Championship Chinese Division Qualifier)

All 2nd place of this split (or 2nd points) in every eu VCL to determine 1 more team (because there is 10 teams in Main, but EU has only 9 leagues)

https://valorantesports.com/news/challengers-ascension-is-coming/en-sg

PAC: Bangkok Thailand
2 Groups of 5 Team in a Single Round Robin BO3 >> Into a 6 team BO3 (Finals BO5) Single Elim
All Matches LAN + Audience

EU: Berlin
Single Round Robin Online Group Stage >> Into a 4 team BO5 Single Elim at the Coliseum
Only region to not have all matches Offline

AM: Sao Paulo
2 Groups of 3 Team in a Single Round Robin >> Into a 6 team BO3 Double Elim (Finals BO5) same bracket structure as VCT Leagues
Entire event at VCT Brazil Studio except Final in a separate venue

The venue is the

Queen Sirikit Convention Centre

https://twitter.com/subzidite2/status/1658415173617745920

(Indo stream showed this first, but its actually meant to be after Match 1)

Queen Sirikit Convention Centre

https://twitter.com/subzidite2/status/1658103373919395842 and a cool artwork

Last Time it requires you to register with mandatory Chinese Phone Number, This time it is more similar to the Closed Beta we have globally

You can obtained it by watching streams, playing in selected internet cafes or various other events. Very much like how the Global Beta was. This should be the last CBT before Launch

https://twitter.com/subzidite2/status/1657640125738946560

Basically they held a program for those who wanted to worked with VALORANT China as their official broadcast talent
The Top 20 out of 546 is then selected to attend a training camp house, which will later be graduated and given a contract to work as official caster for VALORANT tournaments in China

Wild Rift also did this and based on the process of how Wild Rift did this. Official League and Tournament is the next step after this (which for VALORANT is assumed to be the Champions Qualifier)

Had some free time to check all of it on how they are localizing it in the Chinese Alpha test, some are actually cool

https://twitter.com/subzidite2/status/1655572184075493377

https://twitter.com/subzidite2/status/1655540041610055680

Breeze, Lotus and the Five Missing Agents from the Alpha Test Launch were added now CNVAL has equal patch in terms of Map and Agents to choose from

Some agents got renamed or localized to be in Mandarin

https://twitter.com/subzidite2/status/1653062687595823104

Maps: Ascent/Haven/Bind/Split
Modes: Rank Unranked Replication Deathmatch
Agents: The 3 newest (Fade Harbor Gekko) + Astra & KO is excluded from this beta, they will have a test for these later on
Shop: These three skins on a daily rotation, 100K VP added for free to shopping

Beta closed on May 15th

No replies after this I guess I was right.

Having them under Challenger will basically killed the game. They had to start big and separate to the scene right away

Remember that the game they have to beat, is not CS but Crossfire

having China to start in a small Challenger for without clear path vs a Complete National-level ecosystem (wrapped under a $1M franchising league) that CS has failed to matched local viewership against CF [and yes there is more people watching Comp CF than Comp CS in China], will spoke GG for VAL in China before it even began.

In a simpler explanation: Tencent and that's all the reason

Have you seen any Tencent-owned scene that China was small, none. Even the lowest (Clash series of mobile games) they still has it as separate spot

Have no guaranteed spots for them competitive = might just better skipping China market or see how Asian CS looks like atm.

https://twitter.com/AlanGai_/status/1651579094562402304

The July 3-16 China LCQ qualifier might be a LAN

https://valorantesports.com/news/the-road-to-champions-2023/en-us

ASE called him Alphabet Bro

https://twitter.com/subzidite2/status/1651218876657434627
https://twitter.com/FaydeVLR/status/1651214448668065794

• ASE/EDG placed directly in China LCQ

• Top 2 excluding ASE/EDG in FGC ACT 2 goes to China LCQ

• 3rd-14th in ACT 2 joined by Open Qual in 16 team pre-LCQ to determine last 8 in China LCQ

• a 12 team China LCQ that will determine teams to L.A.

That was to be expected tho, most played in the country and MOBA was welcomed there + best region at the time + event is global.

But considering this was an older game than league and most had moved on to newer games (CS VAL) + event is only national level, that was still quite impressive tbh (to think that this image could've been CS instead of CF in the country)

The CrossFire pro league finals is today and crowd returns for the first time since pandemic
https://twitter.com/subzidite2/status/1649679457119264768

Crossfire is a game from 2007

but somehow large crowd never goes away

IMO This is the bar set for Chinese VALORANT to matched them in terms of building the Chinese scene and grow it
CF topped CS in doing this many years ago, now they have another game to try matching them again

imagine CS/VAL never likely to compete against each other in building China scene, but they had to compete against a game from 1.5 decades ago

https://twitter.com/subzidite2/status/1647931955684728832

The chinese server (or called by netizens as National Service) goes live on May 2 with users who signed up for CBT starts getting access today
[Only signups with Chinese Mobile number that is eligible to get an access to the CBT]

• Wild Rift beta in China resulting in full launch around 1-2 month later, if thats anything

yeah they were just good, I think only Brazil managed to beat them just twice for the entirety of it.

Need to give them CF-level of commitment from Tencent to create a scene (that is building "equal to LPL/LDL" for the game).

One part CN CS were lacking against the world is that Perfect World is not wiling to invest large in it

(for example PW's CS league gave $100K in a not league format while PW's DOTA2 DPC league is $205K in an actual pro league format. Whlist CF turned into a $1M franchising league)

https://twitter.com/subzidite2/status/1640696624992120834

CN Test begins soon as you already know with the post I made earlier today
This one has Anna talk about the launch and some footage from the CN Client that includes Jett speaking in Mandarin

It should be accessible, it gets blocked only if the firewall has to block it

Usually not for most national servers, hence why previous interview saying the skins will be cheaper at start

https://twitter.com/subzidite2/status/1640636111893696513

This includes the official VALORANT logo under the chinese font

And also as a pre-register reward, China SV. exclusive Player Card, Spray/GunBuddy/Title

No Beta Date yet but there is a WeGame showcase tonight, dunno if they'll tell anything more. The prev. rumors were Beta in April before the Launch in June

https://www.youtube.com/@VALORANTEsportsMYSG/videos

The channel got Crypto-ed

Apparently NGABBS has an interview with Anna (SuperCakes) so I made a summary recap of the thread that's in chinese, part of the meeting today that's happened earlier

https://twitter.com/subzidite2/status/1639281850395906056

Original Thread: https://ngabbs.com/read.php?tid=35766388

1. Team Deathmatch
2. This is undecided
3. You can but you kinda need to buy a Chinese Account or such to get in, not to account that Chinese server games has a law-required verification system (that requires either a CN phone or CN National ID)

Much much more common in Mobile Games and China

KOL is a step above influencer. Cuz you need to share your opinion to dev/publisher to improve the product you're an influencer at (representing the playerbase)

non-influencer > Influencer > KOL > Dev

There appears to be a meeting at Riot China HQ with China KOLs (Key Opinion Leader) being invited, the topic is of course CN VALORANT Servers

Recap of it: https://twitter.com/subzidite2/status/1639214088822878210

Map specific sponsor opens up potential cases for other maps

Imagine Lotus being something like an aroma themed sponsors

According to the EMEA League format explainer at 1:49
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vda9g4SRGdA

if EMEA Wins masters there'll be an extra spot in LCQ, effectively 2 teams from LCQ goes to champions

This should meant that the winning region in Tokyo will have 2 teams going to LCQ (just that EMEA the only region to explicitly say it)

By that meant CHAMPIONS Spots are possibly

Top 3 PAC League
Top 3 AM League
Top 3 out of 4 EU Teams at Masters (because there's 4 EU teams to Tokyo)
PAC LCQ
AM LCQ
EU LCQ
2nd LCQ of Tokyo Winning Region
(3x China as a 2x League + LCQ? << Given the by the time LCQ happened the Chinese server would be launched)

(I want to manifest "Host Region/Hometown Hero" spot, but Riot never did that)

Tencent's yearly WeGame conference has a silhouette of what is VALORANT on their poster

https://twitter.com/subzidite2/status/1637815151750676482

Conference is March 28, its possible CN Server dates might be there

So apparently outside from the RRQ VCT thing, similar case happened again but in PUBGM's PMSL

https://twitter.com/Mobile__Esports/status/1637610566989627393

To quote the text in the tweet

[PUBGM] Many Indonesian Fans were upset regarding RRQ’s lack of promotion for PUBGM.

• No post was made on the main RRQ account
• The players have no Jerseys in this picture or even matching outfits (no interest?)
• RRQ has posted minimum content on its PUBGM account.

For starters, PUBGM introduces a Partnership league PMSL replacing SEA Champs, works same as VCT by 15 partnered teams + each national league winner as a non-partner.

The league originally start as requiring $500K buyin but they changed to VCT-styled partnership with no fees. Partnered teams has a ranking that determines how much incentive each team gets based on how well they did both in-season and their social marketing game so its kinda encouraging to "Promote your team, and you get more cash".

EDIT: In case you were curious how many teams got partnered = https://liquipedia.net/pubgmobile/PUBG_Mobile_Super_League/Southeast_Asia/2023/Spring#Participants

Makuhari Messe. It's expandable and coincidentally
Is where Hololive hosted their yearly concert (and this year is actually ongoing at this venue) Holo in VCT?

edit: is netero downvoting me

language barrier can be a pain at time specially for into CN Teams
aside that orgs are being low profile til game actually launch before going full

think of how LoL operates in China, same way

https://twitter.com/subzidite2/status/1636342547663712256
Original: https://weibo.com/6882856351/Mxnl5aEAV?refer_flag=1001030103_

1. HK server stats don't transfer to National Service

2. Anti-cheating mechanism will be similar and not much differ from HK server

3. Shop mechanism similiar to LoL, can buy old skins (skins that were released in the past), Apparently the rumor mentioned you can buy past Champion skins as well,no details on how this works.

4. April pre-sale/warm-up? Potential Launch in May-June, there might be a short beta test (no stats carried over to launch) during these period

5. League server independent seems to implied the separate esports server that's also on Global release will be there for CN, both Old/New Clubs will take part and the league will allow imports (as seen with RNG)

6. Knives/Guns skins price might be cheaper than HK server

7. Patch of National Service will be equal to global servers

8. Apparently a rumor of VALORANT Mobile playtest happening in Guangzhou at the end of march too, the test will be in-person
   The main goal for Tencent per the original weibo post is to jump on bringing CN players who stick on Foreign servers

National Service is how CN netizens described "Official Chinese Servers"
Foreign/Overseas in Weibo context = anything not Mainland China

TLDR, Launch May-June if correct

Siege never really gets popular in SEA at all due to the game not being casual friendly and skill ceiling was way way high

Thai R6 league barely goes past 1K, says a lot
even CS at its peak locally here, was never past 10K

PUBG PC, it brought 88K Peak last season
nearly quadrupled of the VCL TH

For TH that's a good stat for a non-Mobile game even tho we know that they are still quite behind the most watched PC esports here (that surprises you how this game is still popular)

https://twitter.com/subzidite2/status/1636281442539044870

FPX & EDG invited to this act + 10 teams from qualifier
format sounds like old challengers, 2 groups playing BO3 Round Robin then 6 teams playoffs

This FGC is not to be confused with the rumored Chinese League, its not the same thing

^ THIS, Always thought PAC is looking like some of the team logos

So now we have three logos officially for all the three Partner Leagues

Americas (Orange, Spike)
EMEA (Red, Crosshair but looks like it came out of X Games, which is an american thing)
Pacific (Sky Blue, but somehow look more like LoL PCS)

Which one goes best? https://twitter.com/subzidite2/status/1635317311963021312

So FGC has provided me the list of Week 5 Rosters, Weibo Gaming and All Gamers finally made their FGC Qualifier debut

But RNG roster makes you question how Swerl/signed ended up there, as they were actually listed in the roster sheet
(both has yellow highlighted in the sheet I got, implying import)

https://twitter.com/subzidite2/status/1635005734038671360

4AM (or 17) could sneak in given their insane PUBG fanbase (take 4AM for example, in a 32 team PUBG Worlds in 2019 theres a pick em vote, 4AM votes was so high the other 31 team combined and votes still less)

NewHappy low make sense, despite PUBG World Champion they almost bankrupt but got saved at last minute

I would want to account the major brand from the two highest prized Chinese League PEL (PUBGM) and KPL (HoK) as well
Which meant things like eStarPro (NIP Owners), Douyu, DRG, AG, NOVA could be interest in it

However based on Wild Rift scene at the start primarily is LPL orgs at first.

Also to Indians, these team names are just chill, see https://liquipedia.net/pubg/PUBG_Champions_League/2023/Spring#Participants for example. This is just the tip of iceberg