Valorant - New Ranked System Changes Everything - S Future Is Bright - Update Guide
Coach Mills here coming at you with a brand new article and in this article we got to talk about the new tournament system and how that's gonna tie in to valor esports because the new challengers reveal just happened and this creates tons of changes for pro players and ranked gamers alike. There's a lot we've got to talk about and it's super exciting, so we're going to jump right in, but I'm so excited to introduce our sponsor for this article, Buff.
Buff is the best gamer rewards program, giving you real-life items simply for playing the game with over 6 million users. Buff is a partnered overwolf app allowing you to play to learn, supporting many games like League of Legends, Minecraft, and, of course, Valorant. All you gotta do is play and earn buff points, allowing you to get steam credits, real-life gaming hardware, or, of course, valor points.
That means you can work towards getting that crazy skin you want. I know you'd want that reaver 2.0 karambit. The buff is super safe; no resource hogging, no mining, or anything else fishy. Combine that with the ability to record in-game highlights and the special August promotion where buff is going to give you 70 buff points for free, allowing you to be one step closer to getting those valorant skins you're pining for.
There have been a lot of questions about the future of Valerian. We know that they are committed to developing the game for quite some time, but especially when we're talking about esports. We don't know where valor is going, and on top of that, the rank system is something that leaves a lot of people with more questions than answers, especially when Riot themselves say that the in-game tournament system will somehow link to pro play.
We had no idea what that meant, but now we finally have some clarity. To quickly set the stage, you need to understand that Valor is going into a franchise system that has a lot of tier two teams. We saw tons and tons of tier two teams that had full rosters of good players that you probably know that were paid salaried and had whole teams that they just basically had completely pulled out of valorent and the reason was that if they didn't get into the franchise leagues, of which only a set number were allowed in each region, of orcs to join the league, then it looked like there was nothing for them, right.
Tier two would just flounder; you couldn't play on the big stages against all the international teams. So it's kind of dead, or at least it was until now, when it's very much alive, so challengers. Basically, it adds a whole bunch of changes to what the pro system is and the path the pro The first thing you need to understand is that Challengers is a regional circuit that's going to grow alongside of Valorent and they're adding a ton of events, like just a ridiculous number of them in many different regions, so players are going to have challenges to actively grind even if you're not in that tier one franchise.
Players that are chasing the path to pro or they're going to have something to grind in Challengers. You might be wondering, okay, why do Challengers matter? It's still the same problems that we had before or the same problems that we were worried about, but the thing is, valor is connecting challengers straight into international leagues, so basically, challengers will have their own season that grinds and all of the big events are basically not going to conflict with the international league matches at all, so they get screen time.
Each challenger split will culminate in a playoff where a single team will be crowned as that league's champion. Now it doesn't end there because challenger leagues within each of the three territories will culminate in a new series of events to crown the best team in each territory. And those teams that secure a victory in the three challengers' ascension tournaments, as it's dubbed, will actually earn a spot in the following year's international league.
Now let me make that clear because I think that this is something that is just crazy that Valen's doing and it's just going to be so damn hype. You could be a team. Let's say you're a tier two, tier three, or a team that was made to grind through challengers, and you're good enough to consistently perform in challengers, and you qualify.
You know, for that big challenge in the essenceia tournament where you win that last match that gets you in, where it's you against another team, the team that makes it into the league, you now have all of the same ability as every single team in the international league. You get the salary bump, you get the publicity, you get all of the ability to fight for champions, and masters are qualified to play in those events, so there's so much opportunity that is created for you, and we're going to see stars grind their way from challengers all the way to the international league, and it's going to be just crazy to watch.
I think the potential here is just insane and it really breathes life into tier two because if you create a tier two or tier three team, you not only get more eyes on you because they're putting it on a separate broadcast and making sure it doesn't conflict with international, it gives you an opportunity to grind your way and become part of the international league.
What they're doing is they're going to expand the international leagues, each one of them by one team, until they hit a cap of 14 teams in 2027. If you get promoted, you're going to earn a two-year promotion, and the team gets a lot of the same opportunities, if not the same opportunities, as all of the teams in the international league, but after two years, teams will return to their league to battle their way through challenges at essentia tournaments.
But I want to make it clear that just because the team is franchised right now into the league to start off with, doesn't mean that they will stay there forever. I think this is just a jump start to get people excited about a lot of the big orgs that have already been at the top of their regions, but eventually.
And these teams are going to change and fluctuate, and the teams that really are the most talented are going to bubble into the league, and some of the ones that don't perform are going to fall out, and it's actually going to be just really crazy and cool because we're going to see the best talent, we're going to see the most hyped games, and tier 2 tier 3 tier 1, it's just all going to play perfectly together.
It's going to be really cool, but a lot of people are asking, "Okay, what the hell does this have to do with the ranked tournament system?" "What the hell does this have to do with me?" Well, what they are doing is tying the ranked tournament system directly into the VCT and Challenger, so this is what they have to say.
