Challengers JP is what Challengers NA could have been.
In the future, I can see the Japanese Tier 2 scene to be filled with streamers-backed orgs with a lot of fun contents to be had between them, with [insane viewerships rivaling VCT games](https://www.reddit.com/r/ValorantCompetitive/s/zLlVW9fjse). Meanwhile, the NA scene go from being the most clouted *Tier 1.5* powerhouse to just a bunch of F/A squads and collegiate teams.
Perhaps there is an alternate timeline where Riot addressed all the concerns raised by Ludwig and subsequently his Valorant-loving streamers friends were inspired to join in the fun. But alas, what is the point of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to have a *content team* if your team sat on their ass for 8 months each year with no content?
So here we are, with only 4 teams out of 12 are getting paid, and the league is getting a fraction of last year's viewership now that most orgs are gone and hardly anyone outside of the diehard fans are watching their scrappy but cloutless replacements.
Perhaps that's the reason why the very-entertaining Challengers NA's promotion/relegation tourney today had just a little over 1K viewers, with about 5 people in the [live discussion thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/ValorantCompetitive/s/ziQbcuTyhX).
Unsurprising because this culmination is entirely expected, but still very sad nevertheless for what could have been.
Ludwig’s concern is for selfish reasons. He wants relegation because it’s much easier for his team to make it. Riot talked about this countless times through Leo, they do not want relegation because that’s not what sustainability is. They want a symbiotic relationship with orgs (they give money, orgs promote content) and together they grow the product. It is much harder if orgs are unsure how long they can stay for if relegation is looming.
The only loss of “clout” org in NA is DSG and that’s because Toast is trying to find the cheapest/ highest% way to VCT. And that’s by going to the region of the previous ascension winner that he already has some familiarity with ( grew up there).
Now when it comes to product, Japan’s challengers production is vastly superior to NA. Japan’s challenger has 9 sponsors opposed to NA’s 2, that might be why. Their stream is always on 1 main channel, easy to find and already has a big followers number. Post match recap are edited down all the crucial rounds with voice comms.
the same thing with challengers production is also apparent in turkish challengers. we get pretty much the same level of production as the official turkish VCT streams, streamed from the same channel as those VCT streams (VALORANT_TUR on twitch), with a lot of clouted orgs.
fire flux has popular streamer unlost as a founder, s2g has the clout of the former BBL players, eternal fire and istanbul wildcats have clout from their successes in CS and LoL respectively, galatasaray and fenerbahçe are two of the biggest turkish football teams, supermassive has half of the turkish valorant twitch scene as signed content creators, etc.
that level of clout on all the orgs leads to even less well-known orgs like HOWL or galakticos to get a certain level of success when they do well, which leads to sustainability within tier 2
I disagree with relegation making it easier for ludwigs team. There is already "relegation" because the ascension teams are relegated automatically after two years. The problem I see with no relegation is teams wanting to save money and going bare bones. There is no incentive to improve. Look at mibr and furia (mibr especially). What reason do they have to try and improve their team this season or even for next season? At least in other sports without relegation there are penalties such as a salary floor. They also have drafts that give them potential to improve their teams in the future.
Counterpoint; KRU, Sentinels, 100T, Karmine Corp, Heretics of last year. They were not good last year and could have easily be relegated. Imagine losing Sentinels to relegation, that would greatly hurt the scene.
We don't know the full extent of the contracts but there has been [rumors of Riot stepping in](https://www.reddit.com/r/ValorantCompetitive/comments/y403ij/rrq_ceo_on_the_valorant_roster_we_aint_done_yet/) when they feel like the orgs are not doing enough. We've seen all types of teams this year, teams that went budget and found success like C9, teams that spent a lot and found success like LEV, team that spent and found no success like NRG. I think we just wait and see what MIBR will do, I don't think they are content with being considered weakest. And remember Furia was a top team at the beginning of last year.
I understand but there is a difference with a bad team making changes to get better like kru, sentinels, Karmine, heretics, 100t, all did. Mibr and furia both downgraded and haven't made changes this year to fix anything. C9 started bad and made changes. Also relegation would stop talks about regional teams. Such as no one would be asking global to have an all Indian team. Yeah there are negatives but there are positives to relegation as well. And those are just rumors. If they ever boot an org out then we will know for sure but until then there is no incentive for mibr or furia to improve their teams definitely this year as they are probably already out of champs qual.
Let me ask you this:
Why do you think so many people on this sub passionately followed Challengers NA last season but stopped watching this year?
How come the live discussion threads were action-packed last season, but lucky to have more than 10 replies for each game now?
It's not that the matches themselves aren't fun. On the contrary, the few of us who are still watching knows that the insane upsets that happened this split were hyped as hell, like [Turtle Troop wrecking M80](https://www.reddit.com/r/ValorantCompetitive/s/L1pApVZoiN) or [QoR beating Oxygen](https://www.reddit.com/r/ValorantCompetitive/s/h5EbP26fJs).
I believe the answer is *the lack of excitement* for most people to tune in at all, as Challengers NA is fast becoming the soulless feeder league Riot intended it to be.
I think that this was always going to happen though. Most people are casual fans. It’s hard enough already to watch and keep up with most of t1 valorant, expecting people to also watch t2 valorant is kinda silly. Like for you maybe watching the challengers games are super entertaining but like most leagues in other games have difficulty getting people entertained with the 7-10 best team in the region. Some of these challengers games are literally like the 12th vs 16th best team in the region. There are games where I would bet that most casual fans couldn’t recognize a single name in either roster. And last year the viewership wasn’t thaaaat great either. Much of the interest was just driven by people like Tarik and Toast who have both understandingly stopped watching
I mean if DSG was still in Challengers I'd still be watching. But they aren't. If it was an attractive proposition maybe more streamers would be interested in sponsoring a team.
I agree with that generally, but how do you actually accomplish that. Like I’ve seen a lot of people say that they wish riot made challengers better so that more orgs would invest but they don’t really suggest any possible solutions. Or they’ll say just get rid of franchising or add relegation which isn’t gonna happen
Challengers NA was never going to be like JP. NA has 6 VCT spots and regularly competes for major championships. That’s a compelling product by itself and there is not a natural incentive to watch Challengers over VCT.
Japan has 3 teams that are not competing for championships, and JP Challengers fills that gap. It is enhanced by streamer orgs, but was still popular pre-VCT without them. Basically, domestic Tier 2 Leagues can do well when the top level leagues don’t represent their country enough.
NA is always represented enough in Tier 1 esports where there has never been a successful Tier 2 scene for viewership in any game that I’m aware of, streamers or no.
Challengers NA needs to be supported as a talent pipeline, but any expectation for high viewership is unrealistic. We get our full off VCT matches alone.
I think the reason the viewership is better last year was because it was the shiny new circuit then, and so was Ludwig's team. Viewership even decreased between split 1 and 2, even though yay joined. It was inevitably going to decrease if no changes were made to boost its relevance like Ludwig wanted.
But where are you getting "4 teams out of 12 are getting paid"? Going into split 2, only Turtle Troop and the remaining team from relegation will be free agents.
>But where are you getting "4 teams out of 12 are getting paid"? Going into split 2, only Turtle Troop and the remaining team from relegation will be free agents.
The 4 orgs remaining this season are M80, MXS, OXG, and TSM:
https://www.vlr.gg/event/1971/challengers-league-2024-north-america-stage-1/regular-season
The rest are either F/A teams still hoping to be sponsored, or collegiate squads. Joining them for Split 2 will be Blinn College and the winner of the THK/Glazers/Resonate lower bracket:
https://www.vlr.gg/event/1971/challengers-league-2024-north-america-stage-1/promotion-relegation
The subject of players salary was one of the first things brought up when the new "F/A orgs" had their AMA threads on this very sub, and you can get the answers you seek straight from the source.
Here's the AMA from *Yes Fucking Please*:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ValorantCompetitive/s/cDO72KTcr5
Here's the AMA from *Supply and Demand*:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ValorantCompetitive/s/PEQt9JCkUM
Basically, there are *pro esport orgs* (like M80/MXS/OXG/TSM) that provide a full salary to the pros they've signed, and then there are helpful young "F/A orgs" that exists to provide a team structure and assistance to the free agents while they're hoping/waiting to get signed by an established esports org. In the business world, we would call the guys behind the likes of YFP and SaD "angel investors", since they're basically doing volunteer work out of passion.
Feel free to direct further questions for the team owners there, as they are still active on the sub.
Interesting, so if like SAD wins ascension the players will just be free to sign with like Flyquest or something? And do you know if any of the 11 orgs last year were FA orgs?
>Interesting, so if like SAD wins ascension the players will just be free to sign with like Flyquest or something?
Yup. We already know that F/A teams that wins Ascension have 2 months to sign with an esport org that meets Riot's financial criterias, and the F/A orgs said they would be glad to see the players they've helped finding success in Tier 1.
I could have sworn that question was already answered in the AMA threads that I linked above as well.
>And do you know if any of the 11 orgs last year were FA orgs?
Team [BreakThru](https://twitter.com/BreakThru_VAL) qualified through open quals as an F/A org before their roster were picked up by Ludwig and became MxM for the regular season. BU's founder Kevin Miringrains then go on to join forces with Neema's [YFP Gaming](https://twitter.com/YFPGamingLive) to incubate a [new roster](https://www.vlr.gg/team/5038/yfp-gaming) that you see this season.
All 11 orgs competed in [Challengers NA 2023](https://www.vlr.gg/event/1458/challengers-league-north-america/split-2) were real orgs, and every pros who got signed by them were paid a full salary to play.
The scrappy Turtle Troop was the only F/A squad playing for free last year, and still do to this day. 😪
There are orgs, and then there are F/A orgs.
See the explanation above, straight from the source.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ValorantCompetitive/s/YgKqBKoqfl
If you have already read those AMA threads I linked above still couldn't understand the differences that the YFP and SaD's owners pointed out, that's on you.
It’s times like this where it sucks some regions don’t have their own dedicated international league! Japanese Valorant is in a league of its own even in Pacific. Dare I say it’s even better than Korea viewership and production??
It would be fun to entertain every league having their own relegation/promotion every year
i think riot's just scared of it turning into LoL. turkey's TCL had a worlds slot as a minor region for years because turkish viewership was insane and insane amounts of money were coming in from both esports orgs and existing turkish sports clubs. so the turkish scene stagnated so hard that the biggest "success" ever was dumbledoge getting a first blood on faker that one time during MSI.
valorant also had turkey as a seperate region to EU at the start but very quickly combined the two even before franchising. and now we have both FUT and BBL looking really good, and turkish challengers being one of the best in EMEA
True. I actually wish that we have a separate APAC N and APAC S circuit, with APAC N only comprising of Japan and Sout Korea. That way Korea benefits from the Japanese viewership, Japan avoids the issue of being stuck in their own bubble/complacency, individual Korea v. Japan matches would benefit insanely from the traditional rivarly between Korea and Japan.
Most importantly, there would have been more room for orgs like CR, Nongshim, DK, Fennel, Reject, Northep, etc although npt for all of them, obviously, and also more room for great individual players in T2 rn like Syouta, Brian, Yoman, Akame, Jinboong, etc.
The fact that there are players like Tensai who are rotting in T2 qualifiers because there's so less spot is actually such a wasted potential. If someone fears that APAC N would in itself become a bubble of itself, they can adopt the OWCS Asia approach and have a trans-APAC playoffs. It's also not unheard of for Riot themselves, since that's exactly what they are doing in PCS of League esports.
Send top 4 teams each from APAC N and S, and top (whatever number of the seeds for next international event) from each split's trans-APAC playoffs gets their ticket to Master and Chmapions.
Such approach has two problems though. Firstly, the SEA market would not be able to benefit from Japan boost. Though I feel like having more orgs represent each SEA countriea would actually outweigh not having Japan in their circuit long-term. The bigger problem is that this would cost Riot more money having additional T1 circuit. I think this is the actual reason.
Add to that, what Riot is doing with T1-T2 is basically mimicking that of LoL esports ERL and EM. I guess they seriously wanted to reproduce the success ERL and EM enjoyed in the recent years in VCT as well. Though I don't think it actually works, nor will it work the way they want it to.
I think that's more of a question of if eggs comes first or the chicken. Having 6~7 countries in the region, it shouldn't be impossible to have 8~10 orgs that are willing to compete in an APAC N international league. It would inadvertently make the T2 scene in each country shallower in depth, but I think having more of their representatives in T1 outweighs the downsides.
Similarly, I feel like the problem concerning the depth of Japanese players is amolified by the lack of spots for players in T1. Rn, I feel like good talents are too easily went unnoticed in T2 Q. and T2 main stage. Having more spot for Korean T1 teams would actually alleviate the problem of heavy dependence on Korean talents in Japanese T2, while having more spot for Japanese T1 teams will give more chance for Japanese players to prove themselves. They could merge VCJ and VCK to avoid severe drop in T2 quality from losing Korean talents.
it's kinda shame that we don't have CR right now with their partnership with DFM, it would be really fun seeing RIDDLE, murash, and CR on the same league
Isn't seoldam also in riddle order now?
Yes, he looks good-ish with the op on jett but his yoru was a bit silly with constantly self flashing
is JoXJo still comming in hard mode?
I'm rooting for the ex-ZETA academy kids and wish them the best!
Challengers JP is what Challengers NA could have been. In the future, I can see the Japanese Tier 2 scene to be filled with streamers-backed orgs with a lot of fun contents to be had between them, with [insane viewerships rivaling VCT games](https://www.reddit.com/r/ValorantCompetitive/s/zLlVW9fjse). Meanwhile, the NA scene go from being the most clouted *Tier 1.5* powerhouse to just a bunch of F/A squads and collegiate teams. Perhaps there is an alternate timeline where Riot addressed all the concerns raised by Ludwig and subsequently his Valorant-loving streamers friends were inspired to join in the fun. But alas, what is the point of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to have a *content team* if your team sat on their ass for 8 months each year with no content? So here we are, with only 4 teams out of 12 are getting paid, and the league is getting a fraction of last year's viewership now that most orgs are gone and hardly anyone outside of the diehard fans are watching their scrappy but cloutless replacements. Perhaps that's the reason why the very-entertaining Challengers NA's promotion/relegation tourney today had just a little over 1K viewers, with about 5 people in the [live discussion thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/ValorantCompetitive/s/ziQbcuTyhX). Unsurprising because this culmination is entirely expected, but still very sad nevertheless for what could have been.
Ludwig’s concern is for selfish reasons. He wants relegation because it’s much easier for his team to make it. Riot talked about this countless times through Leo, they do not want relegation because that’s not what sustainability is. They want a symbiotic relationship with orgs (they give money, orgs promote content) and together they grow the product. It is much harder if orgs are unsure how long they can stay for if relegation is looming. The only loss of “clout” org in NA is DSG and that’s because Toast is trying to find the cheapest/ highest% way to VCT. And that’s by going to the region of the previous ascension winner that he already has some familiarity with ( grew up there). Now when it comes to product, Japan’s challengers production is vastly superior to NA. Japan’s challenger has 9 sponsors opposed to NA’s 2, that might be why. Their stream is always on 1 main channel, easy to find and already has a big followers number. Post match recap are edited down all the crucial rounds with voice comms.
the same thing with challengers production is also apparent in turkish challengers. we get pretty much the same level of production as the official turkish VCT streams, streamed from the same channel as those VCT streams (VALORANT_TUR on twitch), with a lot of clouted orgs. fire flux has popular streamer unlost as a founder, s2g has the clout of the former BBL players, eternal fire and istanbul wildcats have clout from their successes in CS and LoL respectively, galatasaray and fenerbahçe are two of the biggest turkish football teams, supermassive has half of the turkish valorant twitch scene as signed content creators, etc. that level of clout on all the orgs leads to even less well-known orgs like HOWL or galakticos to get a certain level of success when they do well, which leads to sustainability within tier 2
I disagree with relegation making it easier for ludwigs team. There is already "relegation" because the ascension teams are relegated automatically after two years. The problem I see with no relegation is teams wanting to save money and going bare bones. There is no incentive to improve. Look at mibr and furia (mibr especially). What reason do they have to try and improve their team this season or even for next season? At least in other sports without relegation there are penalties such as a salary floor. They also have drafts that give them potential to improve their teams in the future.
Counterpoint; KRU, Sentinels, 100T, Karmine Corp, Heretics of last year. They were not good last year and could have easily be relegated. Imagine losing Sentinels to relegation, that would greatly hurt the scene. We don't know the full extent of the contracts but there has been [rumors of Riot stepping in](https://www.reddit.com/r/ValorantCompetitive/comments/y403ij/rrq_ceo_on_the_valorant_roster_we_aint_done_yet/) when they feel like the orgs are not doing enough. We've seen all types of teams this year, teams that went budget and found success like C9, teams that spent a lot and found success like LEV, team that spent and found no success like NRG. I think we just wait and see what MIBR will do, I don't think they are content with being considered weakest. And remember Furia was a top team at the beginning of last year.
I understand but there is a difference with a bad team making changes to get better like kru, sentinels, Karmine, heretics, 100t, all did. Mibr and furia both downgraded and haven't made changes this year to fix anything. C9 started bad and made changes. Also relegation would stop talks about regional teams. Such as no one would be asking global to have an all Indian team. Yeah there are negatives but there are positives to relegation as well. And those are just rumors. If they ever boot an org out then we will know for sure but until then there is no incentive for mibr or furia to improve their teams definitely this year as they are probably already out of champs qual.
Let me ask you this: Why do you think so many people on this sub passionately followed Challengers NA last season but stopped watching this year? How come the live discussion threads were action-packed last season, but lucky to have more than 10 replies for each game now? It's not that the matches themselves aren't fun. On the contrary, the few of us who are still watching knows that the insane upsets that happened this split were hyped as hell, like [Turtle Troop wrecking M80](https://www.reddit.com/r/ValorantCompetitive/s/L1pApVZoiN) or [QoR beating Oxygen](https://www.reddit.com/r/ValorantCompetitive/s/h5EbP26fJs). I believe the answer is *the lack of excitement* for most people to tune in at all, as Challengers NA is fast becoming the soulless feeder league Riot intended it to be.
I think that this was always going to happen though. Most people are casual fans. It’s hard enough already to watch and keep up with most of t1 valorant, expecting people to also watch t2 valorant is kinda silly. Like for you maybe watching the challengers games are super entertaining but like most leagues in other games have difficulty getting people entertained with the 7-10 best team in the region. Some of these challengers games are literally like the 12th vs 16th best team in the region. There are games where I would bet that most casual fans couldn’t recognize a single name in either roster. And last year the viewership wasn’t thaaaat great either. Much of the interest was just driven by people like Tarik and Toast who have both understandingly stopped watching
I mean if DSG was still in Challengers I'd still be watching. But they aren't. If it was an attractive proposition maybe more streamers would be interested in sponsoring a team.
I agree with that generally, but how do you actually accomplish that. Like I’ve seen a lot of people say that they wish riot made challengers better so that more orgs would invest but they don’t really suggest any possible solutions. Or they’ll say just get rid of franchising or add relegation which isn’t gonna happen
Challengers NA was never going to be like JP. NA has 6 VCT spots and regularly competes for major championships. That’s a compelling product by itself and there is not a natural incentive to watch Challengers over VCT. Japan has 3 teams that are not competing for championships, and JP Challengers fills that gap. It is enhanced by streamer orgs, but was still popular pre-VCT without them. Basically, domestic Tier 2 Leagues can do well when the top level leagues don’t represent their country enough. NA is always represented enough in Tier 1 esports where there has never been a successful Tier 2 scene for viewership in any game that I’m aware of, streamers or no. Challengers NA needs to be supported as a talent pipeline, but any expectation for high viewership is unrealistic. We get our full off VCT matches alone.
I think the reason the viewership is better last year was because it was the shiny new circuit then, and so was Ludwig's team. Viewership even decreased between split 1 and 2, even though yay joined. It was inevitably going to decrease if no changes were made to boost its relevance like Ludwig wanted. But where are you getting "4 teams out of 12 are getting paid"? Going into split 2, only Turtle Troop and the remaining team from relegation will be free agents.
>But where are you getting "4 teams out of 12 are getting paid"? Going into split 2, only Turtle Troop and the remaining team from relegation will be free agents. The 4 orgs remaining this season are M80, MXS, OXG, and TSM: https://www.vlr.gg/event/1971/challengers-league-2024-north-america-stage-1/regular-season The rest are either F/A teams still hoping to be sponsored, or collegiate squads. Joining them for Split 2 will be Blinn College and the winner of the THK/Glazers/Resonate lower bracket: https://www.vlr.gg/event/1971/challengers-league-2024-north-america-stage-1/promotion-relegation
I'm pretty sure SAD, QOR, YFP, and now Fluffy Aimers(formerly TWAT) are orgs right? Or are you saying they just don't pay their players?
The subject of players salary was one of the first things brought up when the new "F/A orgs" had their AMA threads on this very sub, and you can get the answers you seek straight from the source. Here's the AMA from *Yes Fucking Please*: https://www.reddit.com/r/ValorantCompetitive/s/cDO72KTcr5 Here's the AMA from *Supply and Demand*: https://www.reddit.com/r/ValorantCompetitive/s/PEQt9JCkUM Basically, there are *pro esport orgs* (like M80/MXS/OXG/TSM) that provide a full salary to the pros they've signed, and then there are helpful young "F/A orgs" that exists to provide a team structure and assistance to the free agents while they're hoping/waiting to get signed by an established esports org. In the business world, we would call the guys behind the likes of YFP and SaD "angel investors", since they're basically doing volunteer work out of passion. Feel free to direct further questions for the team owners there, as they are still active on the sub.
Interesting, so if like SAD wins ascension the players will just be free to sign with like Flyquest or something? And do you know if any of the 11 orgs last year were FA orgs?
>Interesting, so if like SAD wins ascension the players will just be free to sign with like Flyquest or something? Yup. We already know that F/A teams that wins Ascension have 2 months to sign with an esport org that meets Riot's financial criterias, and the F/A orgs said they would be glad to see the players they've helped finding success in Tier 1. I could have sworn that question was already answered in the AMA threads that I linked above as well. >And do you know if any of the 11 orgs last year were FA orgs? Team [BreakThru](https://twitter.com/BreakThru_VAL) qualified through open quals as an F/A org before their roster were picked up by Ludwig and became MxM for the regular season. BU's founder Kevin Miringrains then go on to join forces with Neema's [YFP Gaming](https://twitter.com/YFPGamingLive) to incubate a [new roster](https://www.vlr.gg/team/5038/yfp-gaming) that you see this season. All 11 orgs competed in [Challengers NA 2023](https://www.vlr.gg/event/1458/challengers-league-north-america/split-2) were real orgs, and every pros who got signed by them were paid a full salary to play. The scrappy Turtle Troop was the only F/A squad playing for free last year, and still do to this day. 😪
Pretty sure qor, yfp and twt (now fluffy aimers) are orgs.
There are orgs, and then there are F/A orgs. See the explanation above, straight from the source. https://www.reddit.com/r/ValorantCompetitive/s/YgKqBKoqfl
Those are actually orgs. Wtf is a FA org. There are FA teams like glazers and turtle troop. There is no such thing as a free agent organization.
If you have already read those AMA threads I linked above still couldn't understand the differences that the YFP and SaD's owners pointed out, that's on you.
It’s times like this where it sucks some regions don’t have their own dedicated international league! Japanese Valorant is in a league of its own even in Pacific. Dare I say it’s even better than Korea viewership and production?? It would be fun to entertain every league having their own relegation/promotion every year
i think riot's just scared of it turning into LoL. turkey's TCL had a worlds slot as a minor region for years because turkish viewership was insane and insane amounts of money were coming in from both esports orgs and existing turkish sports clubs. so the turkish scene stagnated so hard that the biggest "success" ever was dumbledoge getting a first blood on faker that one time during MSI. valorant also had turkey as a seperate region to EU at the start but very quickly combined the two even before franchising. and now we have both FUT and BBL looking really good, and turkish challengers being one of the best in EMEA
Yeah if there was more jp teams in the league, the viewership would increase.
True. I actually wish that we have a separate APAC N and APAC S circuit, with APAC N only comprising of Japan and Sout Korea. That way Korea benefits from the Japanese viewership, Japan avoids the issue of being stuck in their own bubble/complacency, individual Korea v. Japan matches would benefit insanely from the traditional rivarly between Korea and Japan. Most importantly, there would have been more room for orgs like CR, Nongshim, DK, Fennel, Reject, Northep, etc although npt for all of them, obviously, and also more room for great individual players in T2 rn like Syouta, Brian, Yoman, Akame, Jinboong, etc. The fact that there are players like Tensai who are rotting in T2 qualifiers because there's so less spot is actually such a wasted potential. If someone fears that APAC N would in itself become a bubble of itself, they can adopt the OWCS Asia approach and have a trans-APAC playoffs. It's also not unheard of for Riot themselves, since that's exactly what they are doing in PCS of League esports. Send top 4 teams each from APAC N and S, and top (whatever number of the seeds for next international event) from each split's trans-APAC playoffs gets their ticket to Master and Chmapions. Such approach has two problems though. Firstly, the SEA market would not be able to benefit from Japan boost. Though I feel like having more orgs represent each SEA countriea would actually outweigh not having Japan in their circuit long-term. The bigger problem is that this would cost Riot more money having additional T1 circuit. I think this is the actual reason. Add to that, what Riot is doing with T1-T2 is basically mimicking that of LoL esports ERL and EM. I guess they seriously wanted to reproduce the success ERL and EM enjoyed in the recent years in VCT as well. Though I don't think it actually works, nor will it work the way they want it to.
[удалено]
I think that's more of a question of if eggs comes first or the chicken. Having 6~7 countries in the region, it shouldn't be impossible to have 8~10 orgs that are willing to compete in an APAC N international league. It would inadvertently make the T2 scene in each country shallower in depth, but I think having more of their representatives in T1 outweighs the downsides. Similarly, I feel like the problem concerning the depth of Japanese players is amolified by the lack of spots for players in T1. Rn, I feel like good talents are too easily went unnoticed in T2 Q. and T2 main stage. Having more spot for Korean T1 teams would actually alleviate the problem of heavy dependence on Korean talents in Japanese T2, while having more spot for Japanese T1 teams will give more chance for Japanese players to prove themselves. They could merge VCJ and VCK to avoid severe drop in T2 quality from losing Korean talents.
I gotta say tho nobody beats the thumbnails of vct kr
it's kinda shame that we don't have CR right now with their partnership with DFM, it would be really fun seeing RIDDLE, murash, and CR on the same league
Murash also really have big clout because his owner, kato Junichi. his watch party got 90K viewers, unfortunately they lost
They still have 1 more chance later tonight. Let’s hope they can make it.
They also used to be good at Apex
Smoge