Riot has announced the Valorant Championship Tour slot allocations for both Masters and Champions 2022 – how did the regions stack up?
Valorant fans, get ready - your esports season is finally underway. And as such, you may be wondering how many of your favorite teams will be after their coveted slots in Valorant Masters and Champions later this year. Riot has finally released the answer.
Valorant Masters slot distribution
For Masters events, the breakdown is as follows. Bear in mind that Masters will have a heavy part to play in seeding Valorant Champions slots, the big event of the Valorant esports calendar. Without placing in Masters, teams will have to compete through the very competitive Last Chance Qualifiers just before Champions.
- 2 North American teams
- 1 Brazilian team
- 1 Brazilian or LATAM team that will compete for a second slot before each Masters event
- 1 LATAM team
- 3 EMEA (Europe and Middle East teams
- 1 South Korean team
- 2 teams from SEA (encompassing both SEA and Oceania)
- 1 Japanese team
Valorant Champions slot distribution
For Champions things get a little more complicated, as they are invited based on performance and point standings from throughout the year. There will be the following slots up for grabs.
- 2 North American teams
- 1 Brazilian team
- 1 LATAM team
- 2 EMEA teams
- 1 Korean team
- 2 SEA teams
- 1 Japanese team
These will be rounded out by the following Last Chance Qualifiers.
- Winner of North American LCQ
- 2 South American LCQ teams
- Winner of EMEA (Europe and Middle East) last chance qualifier
- Winner of APAC North Last Chance Qualifier (Korea/Japan)
- Winner of APAC South Last Chance Qualifier (SEA, Oceania)
Action is underway in the Open Qualifiers for the first Valorant Champions Tour stage. These qualifiers will seed the first Challengers events, which will feed into the first Masters. This will give teams their first chances at racking up VCT points they'll need to punch their ticket to Champions in September of this year. For a full breakdown of the year's format, be sure to check out the news from last month.
Some fans think Europe deserves more slots at Valorant Champions
There has been some question as to whether or not Riot is right to give as many slots to regions such as SEA and Japan. Europe has proven to be one of the most competitive regions in Valorant, and North America has been no slouch themselves. However, SEA teams did not fair very well at Champions in December. Some of the teams, like X10 Crit, don't even exist anymore.
Many agree that Europe has teams, like Acend, that could handily defeat many of the top teams in other regions. On the other hand, Riot ensuring that regions have roughly equal distribution gives organizations in those regions incentive to field rosters and keep developing their talent.
What would the effect of Riot caving to fan demands be?
Should Riot cave to these demands, we could see a situation where one region rises to supreme dominance and then teams become demotivated to run rosters at all. North American CS:GO is a good example of what happens in that case. While Europe is certainly on top, for now, that might not always be the case. Even champions fall, as we saw in Masters Berlin and Champion, with Sentinels. Many would have questioned the theory that EU was better before those two events, after all.
It's also worth pointing out that this is yet another year without Chinese teams in the Valorant ecosystem. This is likely because the game only just released, so perhaps for 2023 we will see them enter.
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