This Is Valorant's Future

In the past few days, we have seen organizations announce that they are leaving the VAL scene due to circumstances regarding the new Valorant partner program.

A lot of people have referred to this change as franchising, but that’s not entirely accurate.

There’s a lot to talk about here so let’s discuss exactly what all this is and how it’s going to shape the future of competitive VALORANT forever.

Thumbnail by: Bennett Grainger

Music used under license from Associated Production Music LLC (”APM”).

[ruffmastermind]

8 teams in a 5v5 competitive shooter is way too small of a pool especially with the game only 2 years out. Say sentinels get off to a crazy start 5-0 it would be nearly impossible for the 8th seed to climb their way up against a group of the top 8. Where 4 are elite squads and the rest have pieces of a team. With 16 you get much more varied matches and upsets. The talent and game are too young and the knowledge isn't there for newer players to try out let alone compete. Seems like a good way to avoid toxic brand ambassadors though...smite.

[atGabbeV]

Something i notice a lot off people overlooking is how high the chance is that a tier 2 team could be better than a tier 1 team in leagues like this. Look at Team Spirit and OG in DotA, neither teams were even expected to qualify for TI but both went from being expected to be a tier 2 or tier 3 team to being the best team in their respective seasons. This isn't possible with leagues like this and removes so much from the competitive integrity of the league.

[beardedearthworm]

I think this is a huge mistake. Riot came out of the gate firing, supporting the scene, listening to the community, and delivering content. This last year has kinda felt like the opposite. They haven't delivered on the promises they made themselves whichever season that was where there wasn't a new agent or map. The meta has grown stale and they always cite not wanting to change the meta to interfere with the competitive scene but there's always something going on so they never make sweeping changes. Chamber has been broken for over half a year, the other sentinels haven't gotten significant buffs at all this year, the yoru buff took more than half a year. It just feels like they're Overwatching it and getting too comfortable where they're at. More work needs to be put in on their half.

[bennettsnyder]

Idk if in the long run franchising is good or bad, but it seems pretty clear that it's too early. Trying to make a decision on who becomes a partner based on two years of results, at a time when the scene is very young and unstable (no org has won more than one international event yet), seems like a fools errand.

[swabbie]

This is going to go very poorly in my opinion. As of right now there is almost no way for new talent and teams like with what The Guard did and randomly for their first time in Tier 1 went all the way to masters. I would look at it in terms of Overwatch League to CSGO. CSGO has been a staple of Esports since its dawn and overwatch league which is sort of like what valorant is doing is slowly dying. In the long run this is not going to go well for Valorant and it will be very boring to watch in my opinion.

[richieh]

Franchising, or variants of it, kills scenes. Overwatch's death can partially be blamed on it, the CoD League's decline is VERY easily blamed on franchising, etc.

[IsdisLos]

This model is going to kill the tier 2 scenes.

[lionman]

hopefully it will work like esl pro league where the partnered teams are guranteed spots and non partnered teams can still qualify to it

[lokeshkhurana]

So xset and optic, the top NA teams currently have not made it, but sentinals, c9 and other teams who couldn't even make it to Copenhagen got a spot.
Great job rito. Great presence of mind.

[V-O-V]

counter strike sits on a throne of skulls of it challengers for a reason.

game was "dead" when OW released
game was "dead" when pubg released
game was "dead" when fortnite released
game was "dead" when valorant released

Valve's hands off approach is by far the best way to foster an actual scene.

Valorant has viewers, Counter Strike has fans

[ThunderChanter]

Cant wait to see Riot do another spotlight program like they did for League, only to show ZionSpartan as "New talent in the scene" on his return to pro play. No hate to ZS, but how is one of the old guard "new talent"? Hoping Val doesnt follow NA League, but making almost the same choices doesnt exactly inspire hope

[Pyro]

Why did they blow up a perfectly good thing. The qualifications to get into valorant tournaments seemed good. Now I have to watch a down bad team like TSM at masters because no actually good team could compete against them.

[ViperDivinity]

I was starting to think that Valorant could be same as CS in terms of Esports but after hearing that they are going to start franchising, my hopes were shattered to pieces. I totally agreed that nothing could top CS and Dota 2 esports integrity and competitiveness. This is a sad news for those who want to become pro

[yink_fps]

Honestly, everything would be fine with the eSport if Riot just literally just followed a promotion/relegation system. Have 3 int’l leagues, top 20 teams from each region play in a league. top 4 teams in each league go to champions w/ 4 teams who secure enough circuit points throughout the year. Teams in the domestic leagues will play in their own leagues but each season, the top 2 teams are promoted to the int’l league, while the bottom 2 teams from the int’l league are relegated. 18th and 17th placed teams in the int’l league will have to do a play-in match with the 3rd and 4th placed teams in the domestic league. Masters tournaments can then be domesticated and prizes will include Circuit Points. There can still be third-party tournaments and teams won’t have to worry about not receiving exposure in t2 Val, especially in NA (which that seems to be what everyone is worried about)

[GlucoseGuy]

One of the most exciting things is having fresh teams come through LCQs and go far in big tournaments. I haven't seen anything glaringly wrong with the current state of things and I've really enjoyed watching tournament play.
Would I be as invested in a league style competitive scene with just a few teams... not really. I like watching tournaments, having teams fight for their life to keep going or go home. Prove themselves against other top teams.
When it comes to teams on the outside of this 'league', I think it's going to take a new organization to take up the mantle of curating tournaments for pro valorant play. Then it's going to be two things, who pays the best to attract the top talent and which one or both are people going to tune in for.

[ihowdyi]

Best part of this is gonna be team-themed skinlines like OW. Riot should be able to make that happen after this "partnership program" is started.

[Adnin]

Valorant viewers are going miss out on awesome storylines. Like the one we had in CSGO: Cologne with A team from Spain (T2) Stomping their way to Semis to lose eventual championship. What a run. What a story.

[DerQuatschtuetenwuerger]

It gets clearer and clearer every day that riot has absolutely no interest in building a big esports title, they just want to capitalize on it. It's really a shame, i love this game (sometimes more, sometimes less) but I cant wait to see riot and valorant fail with this strategy.

[metyoudnb]

I love playing Valo, but I hate watching Valorant eSport.
So behind compared to CS:GO, and I don't even play CS.

[fox]

Valorant's future is banning players for teabaging lol