Guide on VCT: history, format, grabs and future

VALORANT Champions Tour is the main competitive tournament series in VALORANT. Despite its youth, the competition has already drawn loads of attention from fans not only from North America but also from Europe, Asia and Brazil.

There is a good reason for why VALORANT Champions, the main event of the season, gathers hundreds thousands spectators from the whole world. That is why we suggest learning about the story of their appearance, format, grabs and what the future holds for VALORANT Champions Tour.

Story of appearance of VALORANT Champions Tour

VALORANT emerged at the beginning of 2020. In the first months the developers did not put any effort in systematization of their discipline, signing their rights to host the championships out to external tournament operators.

However, the progenitor of the modern tour of VCT may be First Strike that took place in December 2020. Simultaneously, Riot Games submitted their plans for the next competitive season where they officially announced the details of VALORANT Champions Tour.

Then the organizers had a clear division into regions by coordinating the events in CIS, Turkey, Western Europe, South Korea, Japan, Brazil, Latin America, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and other countries.

The strongest teams of their regional leagues were qualified for the championship of the Masters series that united several countries in one ecosystem.

At the beginning of the spring season the organizers decided to hold additional qualifiers in the regions to define the participants of the Masters in the LAN format.

Then, Riot Games kept on enhancing efforts to divide the teams into regions. In particular, this is when Europe, CIS and Turkey united into one ecosystem called EMEA.

The cherry on the top of the first season of VALORANT Champions Tour was the qualifiers for the championships Last Chance Qualifier and final VALORANT Champions 2021 that predetermined the further success of the discipline.

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The whole system VALORANT Champions Tour 2021 looked in the following way:

1. Three regional Challengers
2. Regional Masters for CIS, Europe, Turkey, North and South America, Brazil, Japan, Southeast Asia and South Korea
3. Three regional Challengers with final qualifiers in the second split
4. Full-scale Masters in Reykjavik
5. Three regional Challengers with a united playoff structure in the third split
6. Full-scale Masters in Berlin
7. Regional Last Chance Qualifier for EMEA, Southeast Asia, North and South America
8. VALORANT Champions 2021

Present and future of VALORANT Champions Tour

The previous season of VCT predetermined the future of the competitive tour. In particular, the organizers added several intermediate qualifying championships to define the participants of the main Challengers series.

Besides, Riot Games adopted the feature of the TIER-2 stage called VRL that helped the best teams to enter the main structure of VALORANT Champions Tour.

Now the best representatives of their region got automatic invites to VCT: Challengers while the rest of the teams got their slots through regional qualifiers.

Then the VRL ecosystem was released, offering the knocked out teams to return to the track through a win at Promotion.

At the same time, the organizers continued supporting the Masters series where the best teams of their regions fought on stage.

At the end of the season the championships of the Last Chance Qualifier were organized to complete the lineup of participants in the final VALORANT Champions 2022.

The whole system of the VALORANT Champions Tour 2022 was the following:

1. Regional Challengers
2. Full-scale Masters in Reykjavik
3. Regional Challengers
4. Full-scale Masters in Copenhagen
5. Regional Last Chance Qualifier for EMEA, Southeast Asia, East Asia, North and South America
6. VALORANT Champions 2022

What does the future hold for VCT?

At the end of the season of VCT 2022 the organizers announced massive changes in the competitive ecosystem. If we put it shortly, Riot Games decided to follow in the footsteps of their experience in League of Legends, uniting the competition into a franchise.

From now on, the best organizations that have been qualified by strict criteria will be fighting in the general format uniting regions. For example, instead of the regular classification into Brazil, North and South America, we will get a general league for America where the best participants in the region will be fighting.

List of partnership organization for the European league (venue — Berlin):

• Team Vitality, Karmine Corp, FUT Esports, BBL Esports, Natus Vincere, Fnatic, Team Liquid, KOI, Team Heretics and Giants Gaming

List of partnership organization for the American league (venue — Los Angeles):

• Sentinels, 100 Thieves, Cloud9, NRG Esports, Evil Geniuses, FURIA, LOUD, MIBR, Leviatán Esports and KRÜ Esports

List of partnership organization for the Asian league (venue — Soul):

• ZETA DIVISION, T1, Gen.G Esports, DRX, DetonatioN Gaming, Team Secret, Rex Regum Qeon, Paper Rex, Talon Esports and Global Esports

The next season will open the largest international tournament in the history of VCT, where all 30 partnership teams from Europe, America and Asia will participate in. The venue is Sao Paulo, Brazil. The starting tournament of the season will replace the usual split. The championship will last for three weeks while the winner will gain a slot for participation in the Masters.

After the end of the starting tournament three international leagues will start in March and last for eight weeks. The winners will be known in May a month prior to the beginning of the Masters.

June will give a star to the Masters tournament with the best teams of all international leagues. The results of the second international tournament of the year will define the best teams in the region who will get a right to fight for slots at the Champions through the regional Last Chance that will take place in July.

Next year three new Ascension tournaments occurred — one in each of three major regions of international leagues. These tournaments will welcome the best teams from over twenty Challenger leagues. Tens of teams will fight at LAN matches for the region and a chance to proceed to international leagues.

Grabs at VALORANT Champions Tour

The grabs paid to participants in the VALORANT Champions Tour usually correlated to the country. In particular, some regional leagues of Southeast Asia ranged from $17,000 to $37,000. However, the united APAC Challengers offered much bigger rewards — $150,000.

Grabs ranged in the other regions in the same way. For example, in Europe the participants competed for €200,000, while in North America and Brazil teams fought for $200,000 and $85,000 correspondingly.

Championships of the Masters series offered bigger money. The first full-scale VALORANT Champions Tour 2021: Stage 2 Masters - Reykjavík had $600,000 in the total prize pool. To add the sums in a whole picture, we will show you the sums of grabs at each Masters:

• Masters Stage 1 — Europe ($150,000), CIS ($75,000), Turkey ($75,000), North America ($150,000), South Korea ($100,000), Japan ($45,000), Brazil ($45,000), Southeast Asia ($50,000), Latin America ($30,000)
• Masters - Reykjavík 2021 — $600,000
• Masters - Berlin 2021 — $700,000
• Masters - Reykjavík 2022 — $675,000
• Masters - Copenhagen 2022 — $650,000

Another lucrative series is VALORANT Champions that offered the participants $1,000,000 in each of the two seasons. However, the main advantage of the events is bonuses for the contestants from the sale of the championship collection.

For example, the Champions collection added over $20,000,000 to the prize pool of the VALORANT Champions 2022 — $1,250,000 for each of 16 organizations that took part in the championship. The total revenue of collection sales made up $9,300,000 at the VALORANT Champions 2021.

We could only guess what changes we will see in the future at the VALORANT Champions Tour. However, now it is crystal clear that Riot Games has precise plans for the development of their baby so we understand it is going to be success.