Riot’s steady approach and serious support to competitive play promises a lot for the state of competitive Valorant.
For the entirety of last year, the gaming community faced a massive increase in growth during the pandemic, and in the center of it all, Riot released Valorant. Even before the launch of beta itself, the release of a new game — especially one developed by Riot, who had kept League of Legends enjoyable for more than a decade — turned many heads and left many people wondering. Furthermore, many professional players and members of the community referred to it as a hybrid between CS:GO and Overwatch, which only added to the excitement.
After the beta made its foray into the gaming world in March it was what everyone was talking about and calling it the next big trend. The emphasis of Riot on designing a competitive strategy is evidence of their potential plans for this game. However, with so many regulations around the world shutting down spectator sports, it’s been difficult for the esports industry to maintain its development as the ever-improving spectacle we’ve come to expect. Nonetheless, Riot is working to create a framework that will ensure Valorant’s long-term viability in esports. Many people miss the LAN experience but in the given circumstances it comes down to the fact that something is better than nothing.
A brief history of competitive Valorant
Valorant had no lack of tournaments being hosted by big organizations, even pre-launch and the number of tournaments only kept on increasing as the updates favoring improvements in the game’s competitive integrity began pouring in. Hundreds of streamers and players participated online in community tournaments to ensure that they’d get a chance to be at the forefront of the market when teams came to sign rosters. Not only were the tournaments successful in highlighting potential talent from the community, it simultaneously allowed Riot to monitor the esports scene to decide which formats fit well for the tournaments.
Valorant’s tournaments soon started branching out of only NA and EU as it started amassing fans from all over the world. Audiences tuned in huge numbers to watch these events online. To further develop its competitive scene, Valorant hosted the First Strike tournament. It was preceded by the Ignition series, a series hosted in collaboration with numerous organizations around the world. While all of those tournaments had a level of hype surrounding them, none of them came even close to First Strike. Hosted by Riot themselves, it had a prize pool of $100,000 — making it first of its kind.
The 2021 Transition
Valorant appears to be set to enter the ranks of the esports giants in 2021. For the first year, all that was needed was a framework to build on, as the demand was obvious. With Riot having released the framework and roadmap of competitive Valorant for 2021, the future looks brighter than ever. The latest structure is built around a series of regional challenger events designed to find the best of the best from around the world, followed by a brief stop at the Master’s tournaments to further refine the most deserving participant which will head on to the Champions tournament.
Each series — Challengers, Masters, and Champions — will span over several weeks, with three separate challenger events preceding the first Masters event. There are nine regional Challenger tournaments, three national Masters tournaments, and one Champions tournament. Qualifying for the masters varies by region, with a total of only sixteen teams moving onto the Champions tournament.
So, how does it look?
Esports is thriving, despite a year where safety concerns could have easily held back growth. 2021 will be a busy year for Riot Games and Valorant. The first leg of the tournament is already over and has garnered an overwhelmingly positive response from the entire community. It will be interesting to see how the scene develops alongside Riot’s interesting take on its current format and even more so when spectators rush to watch their favorite teams compete in LAN tournaments.
It’s safe to say that Valorant’s competitive scene is in a stable state at the moment and given its current presence on Twitch, consistent community tournaments, and ongoing support and consistent updates from Riot the future looks rather promising. Moreover, the League of Legends competitive scene has been thriving for many years and counting and the devs have overcome many challenges and obstacles to achieve such a position. Assuming that Riot uses their experience with LoL and implements some strategies from their playbook, it will only be a short while before Valorant’s competitive scene, in gamer terms, starts popping off.
