Riot Games announce changes to VALORANT Challengers Scene calendar

After asking for it for many months, Riot Games decided to give in to the community and, as a result, they have announced several changes to the VALORANT Challengers competitive scene for next season.

There is no doubt that this is interesting and, above all, excellent news for the whole VALORANT community and Tier 2 teams/players. In addition to having more tournaments and matches, this can help leagues get more sponsors, and consequently, the competitive scene will improve greatly.

Riot Games announce changes to VALORANT’s Challengers competitive ecosystem for next season

Through a press release on its official blog, Riot Games announced changes to the VALORANT Tier 2 competitive scene, i.e., Challengers.

Today we want to share our philosophy on Challengers and how we will evolve for the 2024 #VCT Season.

Read more: https://t.co/fYQzWeqDrA”>https://t.co/fYQzWeqDrA pic.twitter.com/Zkg2jWIqBo

— VALORANT Champions Tour (@ValorantEsports) August 14, 2023

There is no doubt that, after reading the whole release, the most important and interesting thing is that the Challengers scene will have a tournament/league that will last the whole year. In addition, they also pointed out that there will be different league matches, in its more advanced stages, when the Tier 1 teams are in the offseason. As a result, after the end of VALORANT Champions 2024, we will have official VALORANT Challengers scene matches.

According to Riot Games, these changes allow players to develop and have different opportunities to continue competing. In addition, starting next season, there will be an affiliation/association system in the Challengers and a “loan” mechanism in the VCT Tier-1 teams.

The community was not happy with the schedule of Tier-2 teams

While it is true that the VALORANT Tier 2 competitive scene gave us an exceptional season, there is no doubt that the community was unhappy with the calendar since they were very short events and ended very early in the year. Remember that after the VCT Ascension in each region, Level 2 teams would have to wait more than 6 months to start the next season.

With the previous schedule, many teams ended their seasons before the start of June 2023. As a result, several organizations decided to drop their lineups since it was not feasible, financially speaking, to maintain a team for 6 months that is not competing in any league/tournament.

Similarly, this news should not surprise many in the community since, let’s remember that Leo Faria, the CEO of VALORANT Esports, said that in 2024 the Challengers scene would have a “year-round” competition.

Details on the 2023 offseason are coming, but the big change comes next year with an overhaul of the tier 2 ecosystem with year-round competitions and a strong connection with Premier. I acknowledge this year is a bit tough, but we’re very committed to making tier 2 thrive.

— Leo Faria (@lhfaria) June 6, 2023

VCT Ascension 2024 is to take place in September

While it is true that there are still no details about the Challengers scene schedule for the 2024 season, what is clear is that the VCT Ascension is to take place in September. As a result, being played after VALORANT Champions 2024 (August), we will have plenty of VALORANT action in the following weeks.

Finally, at a brief point in the official release, Riot Games announced that Tier 1 teams playing in the VCT would be able to “establish an affiliation relationship” with those teams in the Challengers scene. With the new “loan system,” they can exchange players throughout the season. As a result, VCT teams will have their “Development” or “Challengers” teams that they can use to call up players whenever needed.

Header: VCT