VCT 2023’s severely tight schedule forced Riot Games into the crosshairs of several professional VALORANT players, who alleged that they were being denied adequate rest between high-stakes tournaments. Unfortunately, the upcoming VCT 2024 season looks no better, and Fnatic’s star flex Timofey “Chronicle” Khromov, has had enough.
On Aug. 23, Riot Games announced a super-packed schedule for VCT 2024, including a kickoff event, two Masters events, two international league stages, and the final year-end event, VALORANT Champions. While die-hard VCT fans will be treated to an action-packed year, there seem to be no reasonable breaks for athletes in between events, mostly affecting top-performing teams that qualify for every event in the season.
In a tweet on the same day as the announcement, Chronicle vented his frustration over the new VCT schedule. “I guess they want to troll people with this schedule, no rest for 7 months AGAIN,” he said, indicating how packed the VCT 2023 season has been as well.
The fact that Riot chose to go for such a packed schedule despite players protesting against such plans is confusing. Asking for an explanation, Chronicle said, “Can we at least get some explanation why we are not getting longer season where people can actually rest in mid-season, instead of playing non-stop, especially if you are qualifying to every event?”
Chronicle’s concern is reasonable, considering how busy of a year it has been for Fnatic. The EMEA top dogs played throughout VCT LOCK//IN to win the tournament, followed by the EMEA league, Masters Tokyo, and now VALORANT Champions.
At least, this year, teams who qualified for Champions directly had a month off, thanks to the Last Chance Qualifiers. With VCT 2024’s ‘No LCQ’ plan, teams have been denied the possibility of an LCQ break, making the season a non-stop 7-month run.
Amidst the backlash, Riot had an answer. In a Q&A event for the media ahead of VALORANT Champions’ closing days, Dexerto reports that VALORANT Esports head Leo Faria addressed the discussion around VCT 2024’s schedule. While he did acknowledge that the schedule is packed, Faria said that there’s no right way to plan a VCT season.
“We’re always going to have the best teams playing more and giving us feedback that the calendar is too packed, I have no time to rest, and the teams that don’t qualify for global events saying the calendar is not enough, I don’t have the opportunity to play, my season ends too early… We cannot plan the season with the lowest common denominator in mind,” Faria said, and sadly, it seems like a reasonable answer. “It’s always going to be a challenge, and the reality is there’s no perfect answer.”
While Faria’s claims make sense, some fans are convinced that Riot doesn’t want VCT to overlap with League of Legends’ esports calendar, hence the schedule.
Unfortunately, whatever the reason, partnered VALORANT teams will have to work around it until Riot figures out a way to offer a big mid-season break to all participants.
