"Champions Tour"

Most of these teams have never, and will never amount to anything, the name is so ironic. Before the VCT was fucked by franchising, (yes, I prefer the old tournament system), there were more stakes.

These teams can just flounder and stay in this skewed business partnership no matter what, not even relegation to fear. Talent is doomed if they don't get one of the limited roster spots in "Champions".

Yes I am talking about [REDACTED]. No I'm not okay. Whatever financial incentive there has been has been secondary to the product. Grassroots is how gaming scenes grow, and while Riot has been pretty good with support so far, it is a live service game at the end of the day, and as they expand to new IPs, an aging shooter may fall to the wayside in terms of their tournament dedication if there isn't a huge boom of interest soon.

How teams like [REDACTED] can stay in the league, I have no clue.

Furia?

i mean think of it this way: teams like (TL, TH)*, MIBR, RRQ, GEN.G and even SEN weren't great at the start of franchising, and if there was relegation they likely wouldn't have had the chance to even qualify for Toronto today

Because rosters aren't fixed forever; talent will still find it's way up to tier 1

massive truth nuke
open circuit >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

they have said they will relegate teams after next year. i think the specific wording was that they would "review which orgs were investing the most into the scene and reinvent into those orgs by giving them partner spots"

so yeah, FURIA needs to get their shit together or they will be replaced by someone like M80, TSM or Shopify (unless they ascend ofc)

Ain't there gonna be like 2 or 3 teams relegated each year?

That's the reality of esports

Franchising happened because orgs want stability, and you don’t get that in an open circuit.

If that was still the case, we would see orgs drop and re-sign new rosters at a moment’s notice. There’d be less investment and player support, less job security, and probably a number of other factors (I.e. negotiating contracts).

I agree that the open circuit era led to a more competitive landscape, and that some orgs are lazy compared to others, which has resulted in stagnant or outright bad rosters.