Heretics has traded four of its five VALORANT players since May, leaving just Christian “lowel” Garcia from the original lineup. As a result, the Spanish organization will enter Stage Three of the VALORANT Champions Tour with zero points, according to a report by VLR.gg.
Heretics earned 70 points from VCT Europe Stage One Masters event in March, where they lost to Acend in the grand finals. The European team, who dominated the scene in 2020 and most notably won First Strike Europe in December, struggled after this runners-up finish and didn’t earn any more VCT points since they were knocked out of the quarterfinals of both Challengers events in Stage Two.
VLR.gg reached out to Riot Games and a representative pointed to section 3.7.1 of the VCT Global Competition Policy, which says a team should keep at least a core of three players in its lineup if they want to play in a competition they’ve qualified for.
“Riot and the Tournament Operator will deem the Owner(s) who registered the Team to be the sole owner(s) of the Team and the Team’s slot in an Official Competition for purposes of this Global Policy and Event-Specific Rules,” the section reads. “Accordingly, if a Team wins the right to progress to the next stage of an Official Competition, that right is owned by the Team and its Owner(s), not by the players or any other person or entity. However, that right is contingent on the team retaining a minimum of three (3) players that were on the Team during the qualification process.”
The rules are the same when it comes down to VCT points, according to VLR.gg’s report. Since Heretics has made four roster changes, the organization reportedly won’t hold onto the 70 VCT points that the team earned at VCT Europe Stage One Masters.
Heretics’ current lineup features Ardis “ardiis” Svarenieks, Patryk “paTiTek” Fabrowski, Ondřej “MONSTEERR” Petrů, Felix “al0rante” Brandl, and lowel.
At time of writing, Heretics hasn’t commented on the matter.
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