The VCT is absolute nonsense and has to be sorted out

QUICK!

Explain the VCT format (40 marks).

Obviously, you failed. That’s not your fault – only I could do it and get full marks. 

The format is unnecessarily convoluted, and unless you’re permanently plugged in to the machine you’re going to get confused very quickly. What stage is this? Why are there so many stages? Challengers finals? Masters? Why can’t we just have a reasonable format?

Alright, I’m being a bit facetious. Riot have made an effort to clean it up a little bit, and it’s tough to make a structure that is fair to all regions – especially as we can’t be certain which region is better than others.

Wellllll… we have an idea…

TO THE HATERS WHO SAID WE’RE WASHED 🤫 pic.twitter.com/Zm0nqYiTnt

— Sentinels (@Sentinels) July 11, 2021

But does it have to be so f*cking difficult for a casual to have any idea what’s going on? Hell, I watch every esport going, so I can’t commit to knowing what stage we’re on at all times. I tune into a game, enjoy it, and then have absolutely no idea what that game means.

Oh, and then there’s that points system. Why is the leaderboard so well hidden? How many points do you get for what? I’m sure I could work this out, but most people don’t want to do an exam to figure out what’s going on in the VCT. Punishing people for roster moves is also kind of… what’s the word…

I don’t WANT to say cringe, but…

I shouldn’t have to google the tournament just to figure out how important a game is. It should be mostly obvious.

It’s not that it’s too difficult to understand if you read about it, it’s that most people can’t be bothered to read about it – and if MitchMan’s tweet about non-VCT tournaments comes to life, Riot will get some first hand lessons on proper tournament formats. 

Now more than ever we NEED some announcements on non VCT events.

For some high tier organisations, and plenty more within the next few weeks, having 0 chance at participating in Berlin means 0 Chance of LCQ/Champions. In other words no events until AT LEAST January (1/?)

— MitchMan (@MitchMan) July 28, 2021

If ESL and DreamHack swoop in and give us some easily digestible formats, Riot will both a. Realise that simple is better than complex, and b. Not need as much data to know what teams are worth inviting, and what regions are better.

So in a way, all of this can be solved with MitchMan’s suggestion.

But then, Riot have held off on changing Worlds in LoL for years despite people bleating on about changes, so I can’t see anything changing soon; so we’ll have to deal with this crap for years. 

Get reading up on those rules.