Riot Games will be adding more best-of-3s to the EU Valorant Champions Tour

The European Champions Tour qualifiers have received many backlash from the Valorant community, especially regarding its tournament formatting.

European Valorant fans were disappointed with how Riot Games implemented a single-elimination bracket for the region's First Strike Tournament.

This meant that unlike North America’s best-of-3 elimination format, the European First Strike was not as forgiving for teams who were having a bad day with their comms.

Shoutout to the Unsung Heroes of NA Valorant @nerdstgamers- Constant Tournaments- Bo3 Formats- Double Elim when needed- Multiple games streamed- Seeding- Co-streamed eventsThis creates a flourishing ecosystem for Casters, Observers, Teams, the whole sceneEU needs this

— Liquid Sliggy (@Sliggy_) February 6, 2021

This made a major portion of the Valorant community feel the competition format to be quite unfair. With Riot Games initially planning to go in a similar format to the EU VCT qualifiers, there has been many backlash from fans.

Oh... I see... pic.twitter.com/SfPJuiZUK4

— Zack 'cZer' Chandler (@cZerVAL) February 5, 2021

Riot Games decided to change their EU VCT qualifiers and bring in more best-of-3s to the format in light of the growing dissent.

The European Valorant Champions tour gets new formatting.

An update on the #VALORANTChallengers EU Qualifier format. https://t.co/BJhkWm9qNa

— VALORANT Champions Tour EU (@valesports_eu) February 12, 2021

Valorant developers announced in a recent tweet that the new format that the EU VCT will be getting once the competition officially kicks off. Going forward, there will be a best-of-three series which will start from the round of 128 itself.

According to SmithyW, the decision came after,

“After receiving valuable community and competitor feedback on the first weekend of VALORANT Challengers, we took some time to optimize the format for the Challengers qualifiers. The changes will be in effect from the next qualifying phase starting on Tuesday, 16 February, in EU and Tuesday, 23 February, in CIS and TR.”

Image via Riot Games

“Henceforth, in the round-of-256 up to 232 teams fight for a spot in the round-of-128. There, they meet the twelve teams which received slots based on their performance in the week prior: the slots go to the four Play-In teams that didn't reach the Playoffs as well as the eight teams from the round-of-16 not qualifying for the Play-In. The Challengers will see best-of-threes from the round-of-128 onwards, rather than from the round-of-32.”

The changes to the EU Valorant Champions Tour tournament will take place after the Challengers 2 tournament qualifiers. The four teams who have qualified from Challengers One have already secured their spots in the eight-team play-in stage of Challengers Two.

And four teams who advance from Challengers Two will get a direct ticket to the European Valorant Masters event.