Riot Games unveils major overhaul for the VALORANT Champions Tour 2027 season

“We’re cooking something for 2027+,” said Leo Faria, Global Head of VALORANT Esports, on Reddit last May 27. Almost one year later, this statement is now becoming reality, with the new direction the publisher wants to give to its esport. The VALORANT Champions Tour is indeed set to undergo major changes in 2027. As announced by the publisher on Wednesday the 8th, Riot’s official circuit will become even more open next year, a trend already underway this year, particularly in EMEA, with a “Tournament-First Ecosystem.”

As a result, instead of the current Stage 1 and Stage 2 formats across the four VCT regions, the North American company will introduce “Cups”, accessible to any team only through open qualifiers. These Cups will then become the sole pathway to qualify for Masters and for Champions 2027, which is expected to take place in the Americas. “Qualification paths will vary by region and could include community tournaments, partner events, collegiate events, Premier events, and more,” Riot detailed.

Riot Games also announced a new two-year partnership cycle starting with the 2027 season. Being a partner team grants a partner base payment, performance bonus, and team capsule in-game revenue. “Partner teams will continue to play a key role, entering competition in later stages through direct seeding while benefiting from financial stability and long-term support,” Riot also explained. In the press release, the publisher also recalled that it distributed nearly 86 million dollars to all partner teams in 2025. It also stated that around 6 million dollars in prize money will be distributed over the year across the entire VCT ecosystem.

It is worth noting that the structure with International Leagues will remain, keeping the four known leagues: VCT EMEA, VCT Americas, VCT Pacific, and VCT China.

The futures of Seoul, Los Angeles, or Shanghai are in trouble. Teams will no longer be required to reside in Germany, removing a significant burden and several constraints. The Cups and the Kickoff, which remains, will still be played on LAN, although their locations are not yet known. “In total, the VCT will host over 20 tournaments each year and visit more than 16 different cities around the world,” Riot said. Highlighting this figure raises many questions, as the VCT 2026 is already being implemented in 15 cities.

According to the embargo, no specific number of partnered teams for 2027 has been disclosed, either in writing or during Tuesday’s meeting. Partnered teams should, however, continue to benefit from the same advantages as this year, including revenue sharing and in-game presence through skin capsules.

These changes affect both structure and format, impacting Tier 1 as well as Tier 2. Leo Faria had already mentioned this last May in a Dev Update: “While partnership will remain a key component of our design, we want the VCT to be a bit more open, better bridging the gap between Tier 1 and Tier 2, between professional and community tournaments and giving more teams the opportunity to compete on bigger stages.”

Although the Global Head of VALORANT Esports described the current format as a “success” in the same video, the VCT will become much more open in 2027. The Kickoff will still launch the competitive year in January, with direct access for partner organizations, but also the possibility for other teams in the ecosystem to qualify via a first open qualifier, which should begin in late 2026. As in previous years, this first segment will qualify teams for Masters 1.

At the same time, from January to mid-April, multiple Open Qualifiers will take place. The best teams from this second series of open qualifiers will then be joined by partnered teams around early April within the same qualifier system to determine who qualifies for Cup 1. This Cup 1 will grant access to Masters 2, similar to how Stage 1 functioned in previous years. Even if it is not yet entirely clear, it seems possible that partner teams could fail to qualify for these Cups in case of poor results during the late open stages.

As at the start of the year, another set of open qualifiers will run in parallel between May and mid-August. In late July, partnered teams will enter the process, once again skipping the early rounds. The top teams from this second competitive block of the year will then compete in Cup 2 to finally decide who qualifies for Champions. The location of the 2027 VALORANT World Championship is still unknown, but Riot Games had previously indicated in 2024 that the 2027 VCT season should conclude in the Americas.

A final phase of Open Qualifiers will close out 2027, with an ending that is not yet defined but will likely extend into early 2028. With the introduction of these open tournaments for Tier 2, the future of the Challengers leagues is naturally in question.

For example, in EMEA, there could be a split into three zones: Europe, Turkey, and a combined Middle East and North Africa region. A similar three-way structure is expected in VCT Americas, with opens in North America, Latin America, and Brazil. The Pacific region would be divided into four: South Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia, and South Asia, while VCT China would remain a closed circuit, with its own open qualifiers system.