Valorant set to establish 21 regional Challengers Leagues that will lead to partnership program

Riot Games is ready to introduce a brand new Valorant esports ecosystem with a detailed five-year plan. It will introduce a brand new Challengers League system with the goal of helping every single Valorant player compete in the game's competitive scene.

The Challengers will include 21 leagues from around the world. Each of these will culminate in a playoff tournament where a single team will take the winners' title, becoming the league's champions. These tournaments will be held all over the world which will include: Americas, EMEA, and Pacific.

These 21 leagues will be divided between the regions, from where players will continue to play playoffs to progress further towards the Ascension.

How will Valorant's five-year professional ecosystem work?

Each of the three territories will host Challenger Leagues, which will culminate in a new event series. The league will crown the best team in the territory through the tournaments.

Teams who will successfully achieve victory at the three Challengers Ascension tournaments will be selected for the following year's International League, earning themselves a spot.

Riot Games already tried something similar in EMEA when they hosted the Valorant Regional Leagues 2022.

The 21 Challengers Leagues will be held across the globe and will include the following regions:

Americas

EMEA

Pacific

What is the Challengers Acsension?

Challengers Ascension will introduce a new tier of competition. The three regions: Americas, EMEA, and Pacific, will get their own Acsension Leagues. This tournament will serve as the climax of the Challenger Leagues, and will end with the top teams in each of the leagues climbing on to the Acsension League.

One of these teams from each region will be competing for a spot in the next year's international league. For the winners of the 2023 Challenger Ascension tournament, this will mean a step up a notch as they head into the international league for 2024.

10 teams per international league will compete in global competitions in 2023. Meanwhile, Challengers and Ascension Leagues will climb their way to the single spot on the 2024 international roster of teams.

How will the Challengers promotion work?

All participating teams in the Challengers and Ascension tournaments will not compete for the international league spot in 2023, instead they will be fighting for a spot in 2024.

Teams that win the spot will earn two years in the International League, and from there they might be forced back to go to the Challengers League once the duration is over.

Teams participating in the new Valorant path-to-pro will have to go through a great deal of competition to earn a spot in the International League all the way in 2024.

How many squads can the International League entertain in 2023?

In the 2023 International League, there will be 10 teams from each region who will be competing to become the best in the world. The tournaments hosted during this phase will be very similar to the Masters and Champions. Instead of qualifiers, the league will only host 10 of the partnered teams.

Riot Games hasn't announced the names of the teams who will be participating during the 2023 International League.

About the author

Kushal Bhattacharyya is an Esports & Gaming journalist at Sportskeeda. In just 2 years, he has accrued 1.5M+ reads and interviewed 60+ esports athletes and game developers associated with Valorant and Rainbow Six Siege.

Kushal's educational background is in finance, but his love for gaming reigns supreme. At Sportskeeda, Kushal covers many AAA titles and esports tournaments, but he specializes in multiplayer shooters and story-based games. He sources information from top insiders and creators when curating news and meta guides, and goes the extra mile to fact-check every detail.

Project IGI was Kushal's gateway into the world of video games, and he has been an ardent fan of the FPS genre ever since. In recent times though, he is enamored with story-driven action titles that can be played on PC, including Soulslike games and RPGs. As for esports, Kushal likes to follow Valorant and Rainbow Six Siege, with Sentinels and Dark Zero Esports being his favorite organizations, respectively. He finds Beaulo's journey to become one of the top R6 pros deeply inspirational.

When not diving into competitive multiplayer games with friends, Kushal heads to the gym or settles down with a book to read.

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