Riot discusses ‘what’s next’ after VALORANT Champions Tour 2025

Riot Games has shared its official plans for the future of the VALORANT esports scene, including various competitions it plans to hold after the end of VALORANT Champions Tour 2025 in October this year.

‘Project Blender’ will be taking place from October to December 2025, in addition to other events such as Challengers Ascension, Game Changers Championship and more.

In the post on X, Riot Games wrote: “After Champions concludes in early October, several major events including Ascension, Game Changers, and international tournaments will see top teams compete for glory, promotion and trophies!

This is just the start of what you can expect at the close of the year, and we’ll be announcing additional information about events, tickets, and broadcasts later this summer.”

According to Riot Games’ post, the 2025 Ascension tournaments will take place ‘immediately after’ the VALORANT Champions Tour, from October 13th to 26th, 2025. The top teams from Ascension, in addition to Challengers, will then compete for a spot in the 2026 International Leagues.

There are various schedules depending on the region:

There will also be three paths depending on placements. The champions will ‘extend’ their Ascension slot for another year. Teams that qualify for Stage 2 Playoffs or are in Top 8 in Champions Points but are not qualified for Champions will compete to retain their Ascension slot. Finally, teams teams that don’t meet the previous criteria will get ‘relegated’ to the Challengers League for the following year.

For 2025, the Game Changers Championship will be held in Seoul, South Korea in the League of Legends Park from November 20th to 30th.

According to the dedicated Game Changers page on Riot Games’ official website, one of the biggest changes this time around is the grouping of Americas as a region in the Game Changers Championships. As a result, four slots will be available in the Americas region.

As for the rest, one slot has been allocated to CN, three are for EMEA and two will be for Pacific.

Americas will also see the introduction of the Game Changers Americas Last Chance Qualifier (LCQ). The event brings together second-place teams from Brazil, Latin America and North America to compete for a spot at GCC 2025.

As a result, Americas’ four slots will be allocated to the winners of the individual circuits in North America, Brazil, Latin America and the winner of the LCQ.

Riot Games also unveiled the VCT Partner Series, encompassing the biggest events ‘between VCT seasons.’ The post shares that the partner Series aims to make events more official, creating ‘schedule alignment,’ and exploring options for open qualifiers to allow Challengers and Amateur rosters to face Partnered teams.

There are three events listed in the post:

Project Blender is a multi-month-long event taking place across the EMEA region. It is a VALORANT tournament that welcomes ‘every tier’ of players in an open qualifier of up to 1024 teams. Teams from events like VRC, Premier, Challengers and more will fight to progress, and a champion will be crowned in December.