How to qualify for VCT Challengers through Valorant Premier

Riot Games has revealed how players from Valorant Premier, its path to pro system in-game, will link up with VCT Challengers. Here is how players can qualify for the Valorant Esports League.

Valorant Premier has been set up as the in-game path to pro for players who want to get into the VCT Challengers Leagues. The Challengers Leagues are the second-tier competitions in the Valorant Champions Tour. Each league’s top finishers will get a chance to earn a promotion into the VCT international leagues through an Ascension tournament.

Starting in 2025, Challengers Leagues will no longer have open qualifiers, and will only feature promoted teams from Premier. Most regions will start adapting Premier for Episode Act 2. Riot Games revealed its road map for how players should expect to get a promotion into the VCT Challengers Leagues in 2024.

This article will be updated as this process updates or changes for players looking to try their hand at professional Valorant.

How players go from Valorant Premier to VCT Challengers

To start the process, players must first achieve a rank of Immortal 3 or higher before the first Act of the year starts, then sign up and register to play in the current Premier window.

Next, players will need to make sure they are eligible to play in the Challengers Leagues in 2024. There is an age restriction as players below 16 years old are not eligible to compete. Players can only compete in Premier with one account, so no ringers, substitutes, or cross-region players are allowed.

Teams must then qualify for the Contender Division within Premier, which is done when a team of Immortal 3 Rank players assemble. Players can also be given a “Contender Eligible” designation on their accounts by Riot signifying that they can play in the higher levels of Premier. This designation can show up for players as early as the Elite Division.

Players will then need to sign up for the Premier zone that connects to their desired Challengers League.

Teams that don’t qualify for their respective Challengers Leagues will play in the Premier Contender Division. The competition will have two stages of play with a playoff at the end of each and a regular season. The top teams from the Contender standings will be seeded into a playoff. Contender teams that win the playoff tournament or finish top 32 in the Contender Division standings at the end of the competition will advance to the Invite Division, starting at the end of Episode 8 Act 3’s Premier Season.

Riot introduced new mechanics to Contender and Invite Divsions with Valorant Episode 9 Act 1. These changes include:

• All teams must play in two scheduled events each week on the designated map of the
  week.
• Losses will now be worth 0 points. (previously losses awarded 25 points)
• Teams with similar records will be matched against each other, with rematch protection
  enabled.
• If an uneven number of teams show up for an event, the team with the lowest Premier
  Score will receive a bye instead of playing a match.
• Teams will qualify for the playoffs based on their standings after the conclusion of weekly
  competition. (previously playoff qualification was based Premier Score)
• At the end of the playoff tournaments, Premier will promote teams based on their final
  standings of the current stage’s leaderboard.

The number of teams qualified for the tournament from the Challengers and Invite side will vary depending on the region. However, there will always be a minimum of two spots up for promotion in every Challengers League.

Riot’s Esports Team will contact qualifying teams via their team owners after promoting out of the Invite Division for details on where they will play for a shot at Challengers. If contacted through email, players are expected to respond within two days, or Riot will reach out to the next best team and disqualify the other.

How each region’s Premier division breaks down regionally is slightly different depending on where you are in the world. Riot Games has broken players down into Gamepods (which servers they are playing from), which feed into Zones, which then feed into the Challengers Leagues.

How that is broken down is shown below:

Americas Promotion Path

• North American Challengers League
  • US East (Zone)
    • Ashburn (Gamepod)
    • Dallas
    • Chicago
    • Atlanta
  • US West
    • Oregon
    • Dallas
    • Chicago
    • Northern California
• Latin America North Challengers League
  • Latin America North
    • Mexico City
    • Miami
    • Latin America Chicago
• Latin America South Challengers League
  • Latin America South
    • Santiago
    • Bogota
• Brazil Challengers League
  • Brazil
    • São Paulo

EMEA Promotion Path

• DACH Challengers League
  • DACH
    • Frankfurt
• Northern Europe Challengers League
  • Northern Europe
    • London
    • Stockholm
• Portugal Challengers League & Italy Challengers League & Spain Challengers League
  • Ibit
    • Madrid
• France Challengers League
  • France
    • Paris
• Eastern Europe Challengers League
  • Eastern Europe
    • Warsaw
• Turkey Challengers League
  • Turkey
    • Istanbul
• MENA Challengers League
  • Middle East
    • Bahrain

Pacific Promotion Path

• Japan Challengers League
  • Japan
    • Tokyo
• South Korea Challengers League
  • South Korea
    • Tokyo
• South Asia
  • South Asia
    • Mumbai
• Malaysia/Singapore Challengers League & Thailand Challengers League & Philippines Challengers League & Vietnam Challengers League & Hong Kong/Taiwan Challengers League & Indonesia Challengers League
  • Asia
    • Singapore
    • Hong Kong
• Oceania
  • Oceania
    • Sydney

This process could change in the coming months as Riot Games tweaks this system following its implementation at the start of 2024.