Riot Games has officially confirmed the approximate schedule for the 2024 VCT season, and it looks like players will have little to no more rest time this year than they did in 2023.
Throughout the first season of the franchised VCT, the most common complaint among professional VALORANT players was the extreme burnout caused by the grueling schedule. In 2023, the competition was virtually nonstop from January to late August, with nearly weekly matches for teams wanting to stay in serious contention for Champions.
Multiple high-profile teams like DRX and Fnatic expressed their concerns with maintaining such a tough schedule, referencing the mental toll of operating at that capacity. But it looks like teams will have to prepare for another intense season in 2024, with some speculating this year could be even worse.
With the VCT now expanded from three leagues to four, with 11 teams in each league (compared to 2023’s 10), Riot is continuing to implement a segmented structure that divides the season into distinct periods.
The first part of the 2024 season will be each region’s Kickoff tournament, where all 11 teams in the region will face off in a bracket to determine which teams advance to Masters in Madrid. After Masters Madrid, stage one of regular season play will commence, where teams each play five matches over roughly five weeks. Following stage one is Masters Shanghai, followed by another regular season split with five matches per team in stage two. After stage two will be VCT Champions.
The goal of this confusing schedule is to reward teams for their performance throughout the season and “recognize season-long consistency,” according to Riot. The VCT will also have a new points system to keep track of, so aside from your favorite team’s individual match record, you’ll need to remember how they’ve performed at Masters and Stage Playoffs.
Teams will have very little rest between these stages, especially if they end up performing well and advance far into the Masters tournaments. Another point of concern is that all of the VCT leagues are centralized in one location, so all matches are played on LAN. This means teams like Singapore’s Paper Rex, for example, have to relocate to Seoul, South Korea for the entire VCT season. This puts an additional level of stress on players across every league who have to move to a new country.
VCT 2024’s format will surely provide developed storylines, from rivalries to underdog triumphs. Yet fans can look forward to these thrilling matches while also being aware of the potential for the schedule to cause player burnout.
