International LAN Competitions Can’t Come Soon Enough
As incredible as it is that Riot and tournament organizer Nerd Street Gamers have been able to pivot to an online tournament structure in the face of COVID-19, international LAN competitions just can’t come soon enough.
Valorant esports won’t have truly arrived until we’re able to watch the likes of, say, North America’s Sentinels and South Korea’s Vision Strikers face-off in a LAN showdown.
Not only is it likely to deliver the most competitive games we’ve yet seen, in which clashes in playstyles and tactics result in thrilling contests, but also because Valorant desperately needs the excitement and spectacle of LAN competition to legitimize itself as a major esport.
The good news is that Riot already has Masters 2 booked as a LAN event taking place in Reykjavík, Iceland. It’s a reduced scale from the original vision outlined when VCT was first announced last year, with just 10 teams instead of 16 and no spectators, but it’s an important first step.
Funnily enough, COVID-19’s impact on VCT in 2021 has almost unintentionally created a ladder of ever-ascending stakes that might actually help Valorant esports scale-up sensibly; Masters 1 was online, Masters 2 will be a small LAN event ahead of what we assume is a full-scale LAN event in Masters 3 before finally leading up to the end-of-year Champions.
Here’s hoping that with every new competition the intrigue in Valorant esports continues to scale as the game’s playerbase steadily grows.
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Valorant Challengers Stage 2, the first of three qualifiers ahead of Masters Stage 2 in May, will begin in roughly two weeks across all regions.