Riot Games announces VALORANT Regional Leagues and circuits for EMEA
The 2021 VALORANT Champions Tour just recently reached its conclusion with Acend being crowned the inaugural Valorant Champions, but Riot Games does not seem to be very fond of the whole idea of resting as recently it just made another surprising revelation.
Riot Games announced Monday that Valorant would introduce new regional leagues and circuits for the EMEA region. In addition to those, Riot Games also revealed details surrounding EMEA’s 2022 Valorant Champions Tour structure.
“VALORANT esports has grown massively, and it’s still growing. 2021 was great, but the work has just begun,” said Daniel Ringland, head of VALORANT esports for EMEA.
The VALORANT Regional Leagues, implemented into Valorant’s EMEA ecosystem in 2022, imported many concepts from the League of Legends’ ERL European Regional League project. It was revealed that there would be eight regional leagues in total for next year, in which each of them would be operated by partner organizers.
“In 2022 we’ve decided to start with eight VRLs, selecting them based on viewership, potential for growth, and the number of up and coming players. Expect local stories, local teams, local players, and the opportunity to cheer for your country,” Ringland continued.
“With VRLs, I think it’s fair to say we’ve learned a lot from the ERL system [in League of Legends]. We’ve definitely borrowed a lot from what we think they’ve done really well. We’ll do some things differently as well of course, because we have the benefit of hindsight to make some changes. They will be partner-operated.”
The 2022 EMEA VALORANT Champions Tour
Fans could not be more excited for VALORANT Regional Leagues as they will give “a highly competitive platform for talent development with a distinctly national flair.” The eight VRLs coming in 2022 are as follows:
– Spain — operated by LVP; Portugal and Italy players are eligible for this league.
– France — operated by Freaks 4U Gaming, players within Benelux are eligible for this league.
– U.K., Ireland, and Nordics — operated by Promod Esports.
– Poland + Eastern Europe + Israel — operated by FRENZY.
– CIS — operated by GIG Me.
– MENA — operated by Calyx Gaming.
– Turkey — operated by ESA Esports.
– DACH — operated by Freaks 4U Gaming.
Riot Games said that the leagues would be held on two stages across the year. One league comprises a regular season and playoffs before crowning a champion. To compete for the title, a number of teams would be selected through the regional leagues’ open qualifiers which would be held at least once per season.
Then, there would be the Valorant Champions Tour Promotion Tournament, in which the winner of each regional league in stage one would qualify for. The winner of the promotion tournament would then be eligible for a spot in Stage 2 of Valorant Champions Tour EMEA. The regional league winners would face the bottom two Champions Tour teams in Stage 1 of Champion Tour EMEA for two spots.
In stage 2, all winners of the regional leagues would then qualify for the finals of VRL EMEA. Riot Games revealed that the number of qualifiers and available spots for the regional leagues might vary, depending on the results of the promotion tournament.
Riot will also be broadcasting all VCT events in eight languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, Polish, and Arabic.
Riot Games 2022 Valorant Regional Leagues are set to commence with qualifiers on January 24, with the first split beginning in the second week of February.
