With the 2024 VALORANT Game Changers season quickly approaching, one of the reigning champions and most recognized faces in the scene, Melanie “meL” Capone, said the way the circuit is run makes it harder for Game Changers players to reach the VCT.
Just a month after an emotional, bittersweet Game Changers Championship for meL and Shopify Rebellion, the team’s IGL posted a lengthy essay on X/Twitter today explaining why she believes the scheduling for Game Changers discourages players in the scene from trying to qualify for VCT, something officials at Riot have long touted as a goal for the scene.
“The tournament schedule, lack of communication & implementation of feedback, and inconsistent auto-invite system discourage Game Changers teams and orgs from participating by making it disadvantageous to compete in both circuits,” meL said.
In her post, meL pointed out that the open qualifiers for Game Changers in North America take place just days before or in between the qualifiers for NA Challengers. She said this means the Game Changers teams will have more reviewable footage out there compared to non-Game Changers teams, and also pointed out that the Game Changers schedule was only released a month before the qualifiers.
MeL said both she and her teammates have brought this up directly with people at Riot, asking the schedule for Game Changers to be aligned with Challengers and VCT “in order to have better trade windows and increase upward mobility for [the] players.” Instead, Riot extended the Game Changers season from January to November, which meL says will make it harder for VCT or Challengers teams “to justify accommodating a GC player’s schedule for trials.”
The Shopify captain said the the scheduling problems can be fixed by moving the Game Changers qualifiers to after the Challengers qualifiers so that GC players have ample time to trial and potentially qualify for Challengers teams, and so that other Challengers teams wouldn’t have footage of GC teams available.
