VCT EMEA Challengers announces new three-split season and region mergers
Hot off the back of the VALORANT Champions Tour's announcement that there will be an elongated Challengers season, amid worries that the second tier of the esport would suffer while Champions goes on, the VCT EMEA team has now revealed that its new split will kick off in September.
VCT EMEA pivots to a three-split format in September
Click to enlargeThe biggest fear for Challengers was always the off-season. As Champions rolls around for the pro teams, there is little for the second-tier teams to do that would be worthwhile.
Now, EMEA has been the first international league to announce its new three-split format which will see 50% more VALORANT than in years gone by.
To round off the VCT EMEA season, Split 3 will now occur in September and October, starting with Spain: Rising on September 25. DACH: Evolution has been penned in for kick-off on September 27, and East: Surge will begin on October 4.
The dates for the other respective leagues (North: Polaris, France: Revolution, Turkiye: Birlik, and MENA: Resilience) have yet to be confirmed.
All of this ties into next season, too, as the three-split format will likely continue to offer Challengers players more opportunities to compete and show off their talent.
VCT EMEA merges Spain, Italy, and Portugal
One of the other big changes comes in the way of Spain: Rising merging with Italy and Portugal.
Riot Games revealed that this was to "create a stronger and more competitive league," while also matching the Premier path-to-pro promotions.
This will see the top-four teams in Spain merge into a new league with the first-seed team of both Italy and Portugal, with one Riot-chosen Wildcard spot (based on stability and impact on the ecosystem) and another team from a qualifier tournament to make up the eight-squad league.
"To ensure players in these countries still have the best Path to Pro, Challengers Spain will not consider any players from Italy or Portugal as imports," Riot Games said in a press release.
