VALORANT Tournaments Have A Formatting Problem
With VALORANT esports finally gathering some steam with more and more events popping up left and right, it’s time we begin to look towards the future and begin to optimise the landscape. The lack of consistency in format and ruleset is becoming concerning.
Invitations have to be vetted better, format creativity is interesting, but the game needs some semblance of stability on that front, and for the love of god best-of-ones don’t properly determine the better team. We need to flip the chair around and have a heart to heart with the games tournament organisers because it is clear at this point that VALORANT tournaments have a formatting problem.
Click to enlargeInvitations
First and foremost, let’s mull over tournament invitations. At the same time, there is merit to the argument that it is far too early in the games life cycle for properly vetted invitations to go out. However, on the flip side, we cannot ignore the fact that having large, name-brand esports organisations doesn’t attract viewership.
Furthermore, there is the question of time constraints for open qualifiers and the few teams that do deserve invitations. Looking at you, G2 Esports, TSM, and Sentinels. Take, for instance, the WePlay! Invitational as an example. forZe was invited over a handful of strong European teams that, to be fair, had a better argument for landing the direct qualification. As a disclaimer, this isn’t to say that forZe is a bad team, but invitations are a powerful resource for tournament organisers. That being said, why was FABRIKEN not being invited when they were clearly taking games off the top teams? Even looking at a team like nolpenki, who had been on a tear placing extremely well at events not a month earlier.
Taking a tournament that happened more recently, why are Giants Gaming getting an invite to the Allied Esports Odyssey? Teams like BONK, ZyppanGoKill, even nolpenki again, feels more suited over a team that has admittedly done well in the Spanish leagues, but is unproven in more open competitions - especially against top teams. We all can agree that there needs to be a balance between big-name teams and genuinely strong, unsigned talent. We’re doing ourselves no favours when these teams fall through the cracks of the ten different best-of-one qualifiers it takes to actually secure a seed for a proper event.
Formatting
Creative solutions to tournament formatting are appreciated, but as time goes on structure need to be put in place for VALORANT to succeed. There have been typical double-elimination tournaments; however, even single-elimination hasn’t been weeded out. We’ve had tournaments seeded by best-of-one groups, best-of-three groups, GSL style groups, even going as far as seeding playoffs with best-of-two qualifiers.
Take for instance a tournament like the Pittsburgh Knights Invitational Gauntlet Series, which featured a double-elimination bracket of best-of-ones. This puts such a heavy emphasis on a different set of skills. Best-of-ones ask the question of; "how good are you on this map?" and not "are you the better team?".
Another excellent example of how different the formats can be from tournament to tournament, in the Japanese scene the RAGE Invitational, which was part of Riot’s Ignition Series initiative, was a single-elimination tournament that featured best-of-one matches until the grand final.
Coming back to Europe for a moment, at the Allied Esports Odyssey, all six teams played a single round-robin group stage, with all teams playing a best-of-two series with the bottom two teams relegated outside of playoffs, which also happened to be best-of-ones up until the grand final. If that amount of inconsistency from the formatting of these tournaments doesn’t give you whiplash, then you might need to check-in with Sage.
Even based on what we’ve talked about today, we can see that VALORANT is plagued with the amount of best-of-one matches there are. If your tournament is classified as an invitational and you are inviting some of the best teams in the world at the moment, why cheat them out of games? These early VALORANT events can be so formative for the games ongoing narratives, as well as being able to properly scout and identify talent. Watching a team upset a big team in one best-of-one does nothing for either party. Now your tournament is without a massive viewership boost, and this amateur team now gets to gamble among the remaining teams.
To be fair to the unsigned talent, they also have to slog through these massive qualifiers, which also happen to be mostly best-of-one matches as well, which can be excused slightly. Tournament organisers do genuinely want the best teams to add to their event, and have to plan farther in advance for the logistics to align, but when they ask the teams to play through an eight-team bracket within a single weekend while also in a best-of-one format - that isn’t all that fair either.
Solutions
Let’s consider the following hypothetical scenario; two more agents and an additional map get added to VALORANT within the coming weeks, which collides with three different Ignition Series events. Tournament A has all of the added content added in their tournament. The new agents would be playable, and the map would be inserted in the tournaments map pool. Tournament B will not feature the new agents, but will have the latest map in its map pool. Tournament C will have the new agents playable, but will not feature the new map.
If we assume that there will inevitably be teams that participate in multiple of these hypothetical tournaments, we’re asking them to prepare for three different types of events before we even look at the different styles of formatting. This is a red flag and needs to be addressed.
Riot Games needs to step in at some point in the future and create a mandated structure for tournament organisers to follow. If we assume that the Ignition Series will be used, in some fashion, to allow teams to qualify for future major or international events, they should all be designed to allow for the best teams to advance. Creating a structure, whatever it ends up being, homogenises this whole process and leaves third-party tournament organisers to have some leverage with fun or creative formats. There is room for a one-off single-elimination, March Madness-style, but it does itself no favours when it happens in June, and in July, and in August.
If a tournament organiser wants to be considered part of the Ignition Series, tournaments need to meet Riot’s hypothetical specifications. This will not only create a more even playing field for impactful qualifying events, but it also establishes a streamlined structure for future major events for VALORANT esports.
Images via Riot Games
