First Valorant Champions winning team quits VCT blaming “decay” of the esport

Acend Club, which won the Valorant Champions trophy in 2021, is leaving the esport and the second tier of VCT after two years of trying to promote into VCT EMEA.

Acend announced on September 16 that it was exiting the esport after spending two years in Valorant’s second-tier system, as it “couldn’t justify” signing another team.

“The tier-2 ecosystem has been showing alarming signs of decay this year with tournament organizers going out of business, not paying out prize money, and canceling tournaments,” the announcement said.

Acend was not among the 30 teams selected for the Valorant Champions Tour international leagues in 2022. Despite winning a Masters tournament, and claiming the first world title in Valorant esports, Riot Games did not choose the organization to join its closed VCT leagues.

However, the organization continued to field a team in Valorant esports, playing in the Central and Eastern European Challengers League, East Surge. In 2023, Acend was two games away from earning a promotion in VCT EMEA, but lost to Gentle Mates in the Ascension lower bracket final.

“The increasingly hostile ecosystem has simply made it untenable to responsibly run a team,” Acend said.

The European organization is not the first to leave Valorant esports because of the instability of the leagues and tournaments outside of the Riot-run events.

Acend and other tier-2 squads don’t have access to various sources of profit from Riot Games, such as a regular stipend or in-game cosmetic revenue sharing, unlike teams in the top VCT leagues.

Most organizations in Challengers Leagues stand to lose a lot of money if they don’t win their promotion into the Riot-ran competition.

Multiple esports teams have exited the esport since the creation of the VCT leagues, although some continued to stay or hopped back in via the Challengers Leagues to earn a promotion into the partnered leagues.