Yet another Brazilian Challenger team exits VALORANT. Riot is yet to announce the format for next year
The Union announced its exit from VALORANT blaming some of the to-be-announced format changes for the upcoming year. The Union’s VALORANT roster won both Splits of the VALORANT Challengers 2023: Brazil.
In a lengthy announcement post, The Union announced its exit from VALORANT due to the developer’s plans for the Tier 2 scene.
The Union is forced to withdraw from the competitive Valorant scene, absolutely against our will. It is against logic for a two-time Brazilian champion to withdraw after winning everything. But the scenario in which we won was not the scenario we dreamed of and invested in, and we deeply regret having to make this decision.
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Brazilian Challengers sees an exodus of teams
For context, The Union is not the first team to announce its exit from the Brazilian Challengers. Several South American teams have already announced their VALORANT exit, but few have had as harsh statements as The Union.
Orgs such as 00Nation, Red Canids, Vivo Keyd Stars, Liberty, Oddik, and TBK have all withdrawn from the Brazilian Challengers due to a number of reasons.
However, The Union’s exit is definitely going to sting the scene. The org won both the regional splits in the Challengers to move ahead to Ascension. However, losing two best-of-three series, one to The Guard and the other to M80 has signaled an end to The Unions’ signal.
The format proposed by Riot for 2024 does not include professional organizations. It does not include companies and players who make a living from it while they work, it does not include professional athletes and the structure they demand to achieve competitive excellence.
The Union further clarified they have an issue with the format as detailed by Riot to them. They even went to the extent of saying dismantling the VALORANT national scenario was in Riot’s plans.
We are not talking about unpreparedness or lack of planning on the part of Riot Games. It is precisely because we are aware of the effort and care that the company plans its tournaments that we are concerned. In our view, the dismantling of Valorant's national scenario — Tier 2 before VCT Americas — was in the developer's plans.
The format proposed by Riot for 2024 does not include professional organizations. It does not include companies and players who make a living from it while they work, it does not include professional athletes and the structure they demand to achieve competitive excellence.
Riot Games has not yet announced its format details for the upcoming season. However, teams in VCT International Leagues can reportedly partner with Challenger orgs to sign players for the International roster.
In this partner team, VCT teams will be able to register 1 to 4 players as substitutes,” says the Blix.gg report. “The VCT team will pay the player's salary in the ERL, and in case of promotion, the player will have to be paid at least the minimum salary established in the VCT (as it happened before). In addition to this, a VCT player can be demoted to the tier 2 team and can play on the team as long as he has played less than 50% of the VCT games.
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