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Leo Faria, the Global Head of Valorant Esports, took to Twitter to announce that the team at Riot Games had come up with a plan to implement "a slew of changes" for the tier-2 esports scene for 2024.
This is in response to his tweets from July 9, 2023, where he made unpopular comments about Valorant's tier-2 esports scene. This drew much criticism from professional players, coaches, and content creators. Ever since then, Twitter has been rife with discussions on the matter.
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The structure (format and timeline) of tier-2 Valorant has been scrutinized by the community after multiple tier-2 organizations released their rosters before heading into the six-month-long off-season leading to the 2024 season. These discussions have led to Riot Games taking note of the problem and promising to make changes to it.
Potential changes coming to tier-2 Valorant esports in 2024
More direct funding from Riot Games in the regional Challengers Leagues
Some of the most common points of criticism on the current situation of tier-2 Valorant include the creation of massive unemployment, especially in the North American region after the franchising system module was announced.
With several tier-1 teams failing to partner with Riot Games, many players had been cut from their previous rosters. To make matters worse, the support (most notably financial) that the Challengers Leagues received from Riot Games was insufficient for organizations to keep investing in them.
So, the biggest expected change for the upcoming 2024 season and beyond would be more involvement from Riot Games in providing better financial incentives. This would help inculcate and sustain the tier-2 scene that would then achieve the goal of feeding the tier-1 Leagues with more talent.
Changes to the yearly timeline
The other big challenge for organizations in the tier-2 scene is keeping a team up and running throughout the six months of the off-season. There have not been any announcements from Riot Games about tournaments during the season.
This leaves most organizations vulnerable to losing money during this period. Moreover, players have little to do during this period. This has been noted as a problem by tier-1 players such as Pujan "FNS" Mehta as well.
The upcoming announcement will hopefully address this concern and create a more well-rounded yearly calendar for tier-2 Valorant esports, similar to what the company has for League of Legends, spanning from January to November (with regional variations).
Involve more third-party tournaments
One of the biggest reasons behind the success of Counter-Strike and the growth of its esports scene is the involvement of external collaborators.
Third-party tournaments in Valorant are rare, with only the ones organized by Red Bull getting much traction. Having such tournaments will create more opportunities for both tier-1 and tier-2 players to showcase their talent.
Like Valorant's Premier game mode, which the company wants to turn into a 'path-to-pro,' third-party tournaments can help tier-2 players get the attention they deserve.
The tier-2 scene of 2023 concluded in mid-July with the induction of The Guard, BLEED Esports, and Gentle Mates into the Americas, Pacific, and EMEA Leagues, respectively. The fate of many other organizations in the format remains to be seen, and this announcement could impact them greatly.
