Game developer Riot Games has announced a set of changes aimed at supporting players that compete in VALORANT Game Changers.
The new rules aim to provide an easier path to VALORANT’s Challengers (tier two) and International (tier one) leagues for Game Changers players. The company has also introduced an expansion to the Game Changers Championship, which will now feature 10 teams.
VCT Game Changers is a series of tournaments aimed at women and marginalised genders, providing a stable ecosystem to compete in. The Game Changers Championship, the season-ending event of the year, has proven to be popular with the esports community, with its 2023 edition recording just under 300,000 peak viewers.
To further help grow the VALORANT scene, Riot Games has decided to implement several changes to the rules of its overall esports ecosystem. The first set of rules is focused on ‘upward player mobility’, according to Riot.
This means that Game Changers teams will have a better chance of promotion into Challengers through the game’s Premier ecosystem which promotes teams into the higher-tier league. Game Changers players will also be given byes for Premier matches if they have a scheduling conflict with a Game Changers match.
In addition, Game Changers teams that qualify for Game Changers Championship will automatically enter their local Challengers qualifier. Game Changers players will also be able to bypass all transfer windows and restrictions and be signed to any Challengers or International League teams at any time.
An interesting new change allows International League or Challengers teams to field a new roster in other tiers of VALORANT if the roster has at least three Game Changers players. Additionally, if an organisation already has a roster in the Challengers Leagues, it will be allowed to field a second team that competes in Premier or a Challengers League under the same rules as above.
Lastly, Game Changers players can compete as ‘two-way players’, meaning that they can compete in both an International League team and its secondary team.
According to Riot, all of the changes are being implemented to foster mixed-gender competition, and more mixed-gender tournaments will be announced for the 2024 off-season.
