Berlin regulations cause problems for VALORANT Game Changers Championship schedule

Today's third match is being moved to tomorrow, according to tournament officials.

Image via Riot Games

The 2022 VALORANT Game Changers Championship is underway this week in Berlin, where the best female and non-binary players in the world are going head-to-head in the first international championship for the Game Changers league.

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While matches have largely gone to plan so far, with Cloud9 White, G2 Gozen, Team Liquid, and Shopify Rebellion all winning their opening games, the event hit a hiccup this evening when “local restrictions” prevented Shopify and Liquid’s upper bracket semifinal match from being played.

The first game of the day between Shopify and GUILD X started according to schedule but went into several rounds of overtime that pushed the starting time of the next match back to when the third match of the day was scheduled to begin. This would have left the final match of the day going well into the night in Berlin.

The tournament staff has announced that the match between Shopify and Liquid has been rescheduled for 8am CT tomorrow, Nov. 17.

This shift may cause other matches to also be delayed, possibly creating further changes throughout the entire tournament schedule. 

Commentator Goldenboy announced on stream that Game Changers is currently planning to hold three matches tomorrow: the rescheduled match along with the two planned contests in KRÜ Fem vs. X10 Sapphire and GUILD X vs. FENNEL GC. In the event that another one of these matches goes into a lengthy overtime or doesn’t begin on time, the rest of the matches could be shifted depending on the status of the local restrictions.

The city of Berlin has a curfew in place for those under 18, and since some players in Game Changers are under 18, they aren’t legally allowed to work after 11pm local time. Therefore, if any matches involving players under 18 go past 11pm local time, they will need to be rescheduled, according to Riot.

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Image of Nadine Manske
Nadine Manske
Nadine is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She covers VALORANT and Overwatch with a focus on the Asia-Pacific region and marginalized genders in esports. Before joining Dot Esports as a freelance writer, she interned at Gen.G Esports and the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her favorite Pokémon is Quagsire.