VALORANT: Leo Faria Responds to Criticism Over Patch Timing Ahead of the Game Changers Championship

With the VALORANT Game Changers Championship — the worlds for women and marginalized genders — set to take place in Seoul from November 20 to 30, Riot Games has announced what many are calling one of the biggest patches in the game’s history, patch 11.08. The catch? This update will go live BEFORE the start of the Championship, sparking widespread criticism across the VALORANT community.

The main concerns are that such a major gameplay overhaul should not be implemented right before a global event, and the fact that Riot decided to do this for the Game Changers World Championship, not giving it the same treatment as the mixed scene. On Tuesday, October 14, Leo Faria, VALORANT’s Global Head of Esports, took to X (formerly Twitter) to address these concerns directly.

Faria acknowledged the impact that the new patch would have on the Game Changers Championship but explained that this period represents the optimal window for implementing such sweeping gameplay changes. According to him, the timing allows Riot’s development team to properly evaluate and balance the update ahead of the 2026 season: “That’s important for keeping the game fresh and giving the dev team time to monitor the changes and adjust them before the new season starts in January.”

He added that the dates and locations of global events — including the Game Changers Championship — are locked up to two years in advance, meaning there was little flexibility to shift the patch schedule this time around.

Faria also revealed that Riot had indeed considered postponing the patch until after the Championship to avoid disrupting the players. However, the decision was ultimately rejected, primarily due to preparation issues: “The majority of scrim partners would be on the live patch, and keeping GC on a separate version would limit the quality and quantity of prep time.”

He went on to explain that there was no perfect solution according to him. Some Game Changers teams had reportedly told Riot they would prefer to stay on the old patch, while others viewed adapting to the new one as an advantage.

Faria also addressed concerns regarding the limited practice time teams will have to adjust, assuring that the window is comparable to previous events — even if the scale of the changes is larger this time around:

“Ultimately, GC teams will have 2.5 to 5 weeks on the patch before competition starts. Longer is always better, but that’s within the windows we’ve had for past events, even if these changes are pretty big. There have also been events where some teams had even less time.”

Finally, Faria admitted that there is indeed a difference in treatment between the Game Changers circuit and the main (mixed) VCT circuit: “We know there were tradeoffs here. GC teams and players are adapting to major changes without the same support that exists in the main circuit, and we take that seriously.”

To address this imbalance, Riot is considering structural adjustments — including moving future Game Changers Championships closer to Champions on the calendar. According to Faria, such a change could reduce the likelihood of overlapping with major gameplay updates.

He concluded by acknowledging that Riot would have handled things differently in hindsight, especially when it comes to scheduling: “This year was our first year moving Champs back to October and there’s a lot we would have done differently in retrospect.”