Understanding the new Valorant Challengers Tour

MANILA, Philippines – Riot Games has recently announced changes to its Valorant esports ecosystem, with updates to the Challengers League, Ascension relegations, and integrating Valorant's tournament game mode, Premier, to the international leagues.

At the beginning of 2024, the Valorant ecosystem introduced a path to becoming a prop player through the game's tournament mode, Premier. Players who have reached the Contender Division in Premier may qualify to the first split of their respective Challenger regions.

Now, Riot Games is launching a new Invite Division above the Contender Division as a final step in the journey to become a pro player. This new division will represent the highest level of in-game competition and promote teams into Challengers, connecting in-game competitions directly to the International League.

Another update is the extension of the Valorant Challengers season, which will now span the entire year. Taking place in the final quarter of 2024 will be the first third split of the Challenger season with six separate challenger leagues from Indonesia, Malaysia/Singapore, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Taiwan/Hong Kong being merged into one Challengers Southeast Asia (SEA).

Teams currently competing in affected leagues may qualify for VCT Challengers SEA based on the results from ongoing Split 2 of their respective leagues. Winners will automatically earn a spot while remaining teams will be seeded into the previously mentioned Invite Division for a second chance of qualifying.

The final update to the Valorant esports ecosystem is to its Ascension teams' with regards to relegations. Teams who have been promoted last year to the International Leagues can breathe a sigh of relief as Riot Games will remove the auto-relegation of Ascension teams at the end of their International League term. 

In 2025, Ascension teams can extend or defend their slot in the International Leagues through a performance based system, extend if the team makes it to Champions, or fight in the Ascension tournament to re-earn their slot in the international league. If an Ascension team finishes in the bottom four of their respective leagues, they will be relegated back down to Challengers.

In terms of Filipino Valorant players, we will see the last of the Philippine Challengers Tour and an assured Philippine team to Ascension this September 2024. Starting 2025, Philippine teams must survive the VCT Challengers SEA to earn a spot in Ascensions and possibly to the International League.

Head of Valorant Esports - APAC, Jake Sin, reassured fans that even though they are consolidating six challenger regions into one league in Southeast Asia, it doesn't mean that the region's representation in tournaments will go down.

"Given its larger player base and greater number of active teams, [VCT Challengers SEA] will also be the largest Challenger league in APAC, with the most number of teams and most slots in Ascension," Sin said in a post on X (formerly Twitter).