The first edition of the Valorant Champions Tour Masters will be in Iceland, seated in Reykjavik once more.
According to a post from Riot's Valorant Weibo, the Chinese social media website, the next edition of Valorant Masters will head back to Iceland.
Reykjavik will play host to the first edition of Masters for the year, just as it did last year. This return to Iceland marks the 4th major Riot event to use the city as a host. Previous events included the aforementioned Masters, Worlds 2021, and the Mid-season Invitational.
Today also marks yet another occasion of a Riot-owned Weibo leaking an announcement. The last time this happened, it was a little less major, as back in September it leaked that an announcement was coming. This is the whole kit and kaboodle, however.
The reasoning for the return to Iceland was given in the Weibo post from Riot, translated via Google translate.
"Bringing VALORANT events to live audiences in 2022 is a top priority for esports. However, Iceland remains an ideal location to host international offline competitions until it is safe to host an event that will keep fans engaged.
It is precisely because of our deep relationship and strong connection with Iceland that all qualifying teams are given the best guarantee of participation. In addition, Iceland's time zone makes it easy to schedule matches for online viewers on different continents.
Iceland has had a great track record in esports so far as keeping players safe during events there. The country has done a relatively good job in keeping COVID cases down, so it makes sense that Riot is looking to return there.
Riot's relationship with the city of Reyjavik has been elaborated on before. During Worlds 2021, Iceland's Business bureau were very keen for the partnership to continue because of the boost in notoriety for the northern country in the esports world.
”We have been extremely excited to follow the Worlds up to this stage and are looking forward to seeing how the Finals play out,” says Pétur Þ. Óskarsson, CEO of Business Iceland. “This exciting tournament has made a fan of us all, and I am proud to say that Iceland is now a part of League of Legends esports history. This has also been a great injection of interest for the Icelandic Esports community and we are excited to see what this will do for us from a competitive standpoint down the road.”
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Changes to VCT point structure and Masters structure inbound?
Of particular note in the post, aside from the announcement of dates and locations is a note about a restructuring of VCT points to favor international events. Additionally, it seems that higher seeds in Challengers means being placed in later rounds in Masters. We've reached out to Riot for clarification on this note, which you can see below.
This year, we will update the VALORANT Champions Tour points structure to increase its share of global events. In addition, the top-ranked team in each region's Challengers will receive a higher seed. The second or third place team needs to play more rounds.
The new breakdown of points is below. Stage two Masters will feature 16 teams, according to the post:
The Valorant Masters Reyjavik event will run from April 10-24, placing it around the period that was previously announced. The event will feature teams seeded from around the world in various regions. Challengers events, which seed Masters, are underway as of writing.
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