Valorant Champions Tour

In November 2020, Riot Games announced the first Valorant Champions Tour, a tournament series divided into three tiers: Challengers, Masters, and Champions. Challengers would act as the lowest tier, split into six regions. Teams that advance past Challengers would move on to Masters, where teams would not be divided by regions anymore, and the top 16 teams from Masters would move on to Champions, the final tournament of VCT.[2] In February 2021, they announced the VCT Game Changers, a supplementary tournament initiative for women and marginalized genders.[3]

Riot hired esports infrastructure company Nerd Street Gamers as operators and producers for all North American Challengers and Masters events.[4][5] They also hired several third-party companies to broadcast their events, such as Liga de Videojuegos Profesional (LVP) for their Spanish-language broadcasts and LetsPlay.Live for their Oceania broadcasts.[6] The 2021 Champions tournament took place on December 1–12 at the Verti Music Hall in Berlin, Germany, concluding with team Acend defeating Gambit Esports in the grand finals by a score of 3–2.[7][8]

Over 10,000 teams competed in the VCT in 2021. Outside of Champions, VCT saw its highest viewership at the Reykjavik Masters tournament in May, with a peak viewership of 1,085,850. The Champions grand finals match in December reached a peak viewership of 1,089,068, making it the VCT's highest peak viewership.[9][10]

Riot made several changes to the format of VCT for its second iteration. While the overall structure of Challengers, Masters, and Champions remained unchanged, it reduced the number of stages of Challengers and Masters events from three to two. VCT Challengers began on February 11, 2022.[11] The 2022 Champions Tournament took place from September 1 to 18 in Istanbul, Turkey.[12]

Riot Games announced a new format starting in 2023.[13] The season will be split into three international regions – Americas, EMEA, and Pacific instead of the 7 regions format (NA, EMEA, Asia-Pacific, Korea, Japan, Brazil, and LATAM) used in previous years. Each international region will have its own International League that replaces the Challengers to become the domestic competitions to qualify for Masters and Champions. On September 21, 2022, Riot Games announced the thirty teams that had been selected as part of their new partnership format.[14][15]

As of 2023, 30 teams are selected to be partner teams in International Leagues for five years with 10 teams per region. About non-partner teams, they compete in many sub-regions of Challengers events to qualify for "Ascension" events. The Ascension events will have one winner per region, which earns them a two-year promotion into their regions' International League. The promoted teams will have a chance to qualify for the global tournaments (Masters and Champions), as well as get benefits provided to other partnered teams. Each year through the Challengers promotion system, the three International Leagues will expand by one team each, until they reach a cap of 14 teams in each region in 2027.[16][17]

Teams in each International League will play on LAN in a centralized local: Los Angeles for the Americas League, Berlin for the EMEA League, and Seoul for the Pacific League.[18]

Before 2024, although Valorant had not been licensed for release in China, Riot Games allowed Chinese teams to participate in global tournaments (Masters and Champions) through achievements in domestic tournaments from a third party in China. From 2024, with Valorant licensed for release in China, Riot directly organizes a own league specifically for China with a format similar to International Leagues, as well as competition slots for only teams from China at Masters and Champions.[21]

The Valorant Masters is an annual Valorant international tournament organized by Riot Games in the middle of years since 2021.[22][23] Similar to the Mid-Season Invitational from League of Legends, it is the second most important international Valorant tournament after Champions.[24] Teams must place near the top of their regional league to qualify for Masters.[25][26]

The Valorant Champions is the annual professional Valorant world championship tournament hosted by Riot Games and is the culmination of each VCT season. Teams compete for the world champion title of Valorant esports.

Non-partner teams compete in Challengers events of sub-regions to qualify for "Ascension", the yearly promotion event to the respective International Leagues. Teams are promoted to the International Leagues for a two-year stay, after which they will have to compete in Challengers again.

As of 2023, there are 23 minor regional leagues across the three international territories.[27]

Valorant Game Changers is a series of domestic competitions for women and other marginalized genders within Valorant esports.[28] Teams that finish in top places will qualify for the Valorant Game Changers Championship, a competition that is the world championship event of Game Changers series.

  *   Team or organization no longer participates in Valorant esports.

  *   Team not currently partnered and competing in sub-regional Challengers or third-party competition.

The original masters trophy was unveiled by Riot at a May 2021 media preview event in the build up to Masters Reykjavik. It features a metal bottom and a glass top.

The trophy was redesigned in 2023, again by Volpin Props, to be reusable for Masters tournaments in multiple regions.[29] It stands at 18 inches and features a swappable 'Radianite' core. For Masters Tokyo, it featured duelist Yoru's ultimate Oni mask. The body of the trophy is palladium-plated with plastic components.

The Valorant Champions trophy was first unveiled ahead of Valorant Champions 2021. Also designed and built by Volpin Props of Atlanta, Georgia, it stands at 2 feet tall and is partially 3D-printed, with 24 karat gold decoration overlayed.[30]