Valorant fans outraged after NRG Ethan shares team’s short VCT schedule

Valorant Champions Tour fans are criticizing Riot Games’ tournament format after NRG Esports’ season was cut short in July.

After being eliminated from playoff contention on July 7 with a 1-2 loss to Cloud9, former World Champion Ethan “Ethan” Arnold revealed that NRG would not be playing an official Valorant match until 2025, cutting their season short.

“‘Cya next year.’ You’re telling me you don’t play again until 2025…?” asked fellow CSGO player NAF.

“Correct, our year has ended July 7th!” replied Ethan. 

NRG failed to qualify for both international events in 2024, which left them with only 13 matches played for the entire season. 

For comparison, Ethan played 29 matches throughout 2023 while playing for Evil Geniuses. 

VCT fans took to Reddit to share their frustrations with the current format and the lack of off-season events that franchised teams can participate in. 

“Riot schedules are absolutely abysmal. They should just have events for the whole year, or at least with like 2 or max 3 months of off time. It is not good for your mental that if you lose, you wait like 5-6 months to play again… I think this is mismanaged heavily,” pointed out a Reddit commenter. 

The Red Bull Home Ground tournament is the sole off-season event that annually invites teams from both EMEA and the Americas to compete. 

Other tournaments have been hosted by content creators and organizations, like the Ludwig x Tarik and Sentinels Invitational, which took place before the 2024 season officially started. 

But even these off-season events aren’t seen as “serious” to the community. Because they’re not official, they don’t hold much weight to performance in the VCT.

“The biggest issue with the Valorant competitive scene is that everything revolves around VCT. Oh, you get invited to 1 of the 3 decent off-season events? Let’s just troll; it’s not VCT. Off-season events don’t matter after all…” said another commenter. 

As the VCT 2024 season nears its conclusion, many teams face the upcoming or ongoing playoffs. Teams that fail to secure one of the four spots in their region for Champions will have to wait until 2025 for their next official matches.