Riot unveils Masters destinations, format changes for 2026

#1

askrial

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holy shit they actually did it.

#21

sentinelmain377

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hijack comment:
"Masters Santiago will feature 12 teams from around the world instead of the eight teams seen at Masters Bangkok and Masters Madrid."

finally no more mickey mouse events like bangkok/madrid.

#51

Luglup

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Riot healing world first LR in lec and now this

#2

luminescience

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We will all be going to London🔥🔥🔥
Cam on England scor sam fawkin gawls

#3

airball

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actually good changes W riot

#4

themaniel

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we are SO back

#5

shrike-

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MY ESPORT IS SAVED

#6

ari

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aaa

#7

Marii

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Woaaahhh who let Leo cook

#11

smartest

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Leo is just a figurehead

#15

Marii

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Is he not head of Val esports?

#60

Berutt-

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He is, it's just an American being an American.

#86

Breloof

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Leo makes a bad decision --> it's his fault alone

Leo makes a good decision --> he's just a figurehead

Pretty simple

#8

DrudaL

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lets goooo dude

#9

mojhito5

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leo faria is him bro, w changes and im so excited for London lets go

#10

Dadyxx

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W

#12

unknown_trash

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Finally I can attend a VCT LAN because it's coming to London!!!! I will definitely be there.

#13

Cerati

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FINALLY SANTIAGO 🆑🆑🆑🆑🆑🆑🆑🆑
BEST MASTERS EVER

#14

VxpxFX

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Holy W

#16

SudokuDude

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I need clarity for stage 2. Is it two tier 1 teams and two tier 2 teams for each region to qualify to champs?

#18

Invic_Deep

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Nope 4 tier 2 teams+ playoff qualified tier 1 teams like current battle it out nd top 4 qualify to champs could be all 4 tier 2 or all 4 tier 1 or any combination

#22

SudokuDude

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Alright thanks. My slow ass needed this. W 18 19 and 20.

#19

AGlover

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probably the ascension winner will play the stage 2 playoffs

#71

Alveio

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No ascension in 2026

#73

AGlover

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yes but how will they determine which tier 2 teams will play stage 2 playoffs? the emea for example has about 10 challengers

#80

Alveio

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That's a question they'll have to answer. Maybe if they keep Challengers EMEA, the winner of this. Or if it's a big playoffs bracket, the winner of each league cause there's 6 of them. I honestly don't know, just rambling tbh

#85

AGlover

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yeah i think they will create a challengers china, pacific and americas

#20

BrennerGames

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no, challengers teams dont qualify too champs directly. they qualify to stage 2 playoffs for a shot to play at champs, they are also compensated for the whole year if they make stage 2 playoffs

#17

intehshdaow

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Is it a free stage 2 playoffs slot for challengers team? If so, what a clown RIOT is.

#24

brezyyy

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obv it's for best teams from both worlds :/

#23

renley

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rip riot south american crowds are the worst

#29

capncookx1

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Gaaaaaaaaaahhhh

#25

Ws17

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Stage 1 we eatin good

#26

G_low1

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they couldnt choose a different chinese city? we just gonna recycle shanghai?

#27

Loomer

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idk if u know this, but every vct regular season host city got a champs of their own, so it stands to reason shanghai will too

#28

Warlordwibz

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About time LATAM finally gets an event, hopefully they shift the time like Toronto so APAC fans can actually watch the event. Brazil lockin time was brutal.

#30

Yungtec199FR

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I like this but it kinda ass if we can see teams like tenax or fucking blue Otter in Americas who could have surprise upsets and make champs and get stomped by tier 1 teams

#32

backslider

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Tier 2 teams will 100% be good like The Guard, M80, XLG, Sin Prisa, etc. if riot are offering a stipend that can pay for the entire season, they get to compete at champions and qualify for the league

Plus they’re gonna be in the league all next year anyway might as well

#72

Alveio

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I mean, they'll have to go through the Sage 2 playoffs to earn their spots to Champs. If they can make it there, they belong in Champs

#31

backslider

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Who the fuck thought they might actually fix tier 2 😭😭😭

#33

ArterieX

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LEO FARIA actually GOATed for this

#34

Tabularasa

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How does this fix tier 2. They could just fund a tier 2 league.
They have the money, this is just a ploy to make more orgs think that a season without needing to pay their players is possible so they will stay in the scene.
This feels like a repeat of the 2023 season with a bunch of orgs slowly dropping out when the learn that it is nowhere as realistic as they first thought.
This needs to be the link to a promotion/ Relegation system once franchise is over. Fully fund tier 1 and 2 like they do with tier 1 now.

#36

Loomer

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funding a tier 2 league to sustain itself is absolutely not what we want

#55

Tabularasa

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Why do i always see this sentiment. Right now tier 2 is a money sinkhole for everyone. If you don't make tier 1 you always lose money.
We can set a solid foundation for orgs to know that if they preform badly they will be punished but still cared for by going to tier 2. Reward people who play in tier 2 allowing them to make it a career with less risks.
I feel it fixes most issues other then riots pockets in the short term.
All over the world sports have proved a good second division can get viewers. American college NFL or the championship/ Bundesliga 2 are really solid leagues that put up viewing numbers with loyal fans.

#57

diffed

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at the end of they day, riot is a company, waste less money and gain more money

#61

Loomer

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you are comparing an esport (which esports as a whole is widely considered unsustainable) to traditional sports that have college funding and and decades worth of sponsors to back up their system as well as fanbases large enough to bring in added revenue. fully funding tier 2 would cost nearly the same amount they spend on tier 1 but with way less return of investment due to lack of engagement compared to the top leagues. while i agree that tier 2 should be improved to incentivize investment, the whole point of any tier 2 system is to develop talent to get into tier 1 not make a job out of it. that would make val esports even more unsustainable than it already is and would die even quicker

#79

Tabularasa

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I agree the sport comparison isn't great but we should be aiming to get their as a community. No sport really started as a massive community with decades of rivalries and culture but with enough sport it gets there, riot should be aiming to fast track that growth because damm have you seen the income of American sport leagues.

My thought is more that if tier 2 can at least be close to a job in terms on income more people can try and pursue it and more orgs can try and pursue it. Riot isn't going to run out of money but the org's will, they need more support.

#35

InYourDreams

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The manifestation of Santiago and London finally happened
Finally first master not a Mickey Mouse anymore let’s go baby

#37

Anguibok

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Stop getting fooled by the "path for champs for T2 team"

We are probably mourning the end of ascention team, plus we also should have a path to inter for masters too and we not have it.

Again, imagine if for kickoff we would have 4 T2 team qualified, so we would have a 16 team bracket instead of an horrible 12 team bracket

#38

InYourDreams

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Ofc man it is not helping t2 much but I think the challengers team do get some incentive if they qualify for champs but nevertheless T2 still dying

#41

Anguibok

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It's easier to make a G2/DRG/XLG path, and qual to champ after playing a lot of T1 team in offi, than playing T2 the whole year and having to beat T1 in 1 tournament without T1 experience.
If they are no path to master for T2 team and no more ascention team it's a HUGE LOSS for T2 teams, we have currently 3 T2 team qual to champs, if they are 1 T2 team qual to champs in 2027 it will be a fucking miracle

#63

arugula33

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The problem is that in the current system ascension teams are always delayed a year. This means the teams need to be funded for an entire year with 0 payoff even if they ascend. This way within a single season the teams can directly start competing in T1. Ofc its not ideal since this means they lose out on masters but they said there will be more changes in 2027 and hopefully it addresses these issues.

#66

Anguibok

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We can have both ascention AND a path to international event. We technally have it for champions 2026, and it was easy to make a "T2 kickoff" right before the "T1 kickoff" and qualify 4 T2 team (Without making a LAN event) so we have a format with 16 team that will be way better than a format with 12.

#68

arugula33

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Well no we cant because franchising ends after 2026 so ascension teams would be ascending into nothing, thats very much the whole point

#75

Anguibok

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Then this mean no ascension anymore, and no T2 team that would play into the main league, no "T1 games for T2 team" anymore.and just a path for international event

#82

arugula33

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from this post its clear that next years system is a temporary stop gap and that an entirely different system will be used in 2027. There is 0 reason to use the current system as your foundation.

#84

Anguibok

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We will see, but i'm afraid

#39

Loomer

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i would prolly wait to see how it unfolds, bc they emphasized that this is just part of the changes they are going to make for the next era of vct. we dont have the full picture yet so their will obviously be gaps and questions but this is far from the final form of their new structure

#42

Anguibok

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True, this annoucementcreate more question than answer, so maybe they are something not ssay, but, with what they said, it's not good for T2 at least for 2026

#43

TMosura

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It's not perfect, but I'd like to think next year's model is there for a reason. I won't say they fooled anyone.

We have exactly one more season of the current Partnership cycle until we refresh at the end of the 2026 season. This is meant to be the stopgap year.

Giving Tier 2 teams to qualify for the end of the year campaign while giving them stipend/compensation to last an entire competitive year (if they make it to Playoffs) means that Tier 2 isn't only fighting for a chance at an 8-month VCT campaign, but now they fight for a chance at the end of the year competition and reap another set of benefits.

Is it perfect? No, but it's clear that it's a fraction of what Riot can do in terms of preparing themselves for further Tier 2 integration for the future cycles. We'll have to wait and see for the 2027 model.

In addition, we might be seeing a return of a few of unified Challengers playoffs, because how would you send 4 teams to Stage 2 Playoffs when you have 5 subregions like Pacific's ecosystem?

#62

Anguibok

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Sure, it's nice to give a path to champs for T2, but the problem I'm pointing is, "If they are no ascension that's mean no T2 team will be allowed to play in 2027", and I rather have ascension that can help you to qual, than a path to champs for T2 once a year, meaning they are no official game versus T1 team during the whole year.

So 2 possibilities :

12 partner team in 2027 possibility : No ascension mean, no T2 team in T1 in 2027, wish mean it's gonna be harder for T2 team to qual to Champs; 5
Make no sense possibility : If a team win a tournament that allow them to go to inter, why no automatically qualify them for 2027 since they are still ascension team. Since this solution is contradictory this probability is low (And if its happening we gonna be all mad, because not qualifying a top 4 team for 2027 make no sense)

The "fool", is the fact we don't think about the implication about what he says ^^ (Or maybe they are another option you will tell me, but so far, it seems to me thats things are getting worse for T2)

#64

arugula33

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Clearly the lack of an ascension team is because 2027 will fundamentally change how the team structures work making ascension obsolete. You really aren't thinking this through at all

#65

Anguibok

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Maybe, but how you see this in that case ? Because from my POV I can only see a 12 partner team system if we stop ascention.

#67

arugula33

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who's to say there will be partners at all? Franchising ends after 2026, they could do something completely different

#77

Anguibok

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End of partner do sounds really unrealistic but it's a possibility. They litterrally throw KOI under the bus to save M8 to drop M8 under the bus the exact next year and go back to an open format ? This would make no sense ^^

#83

arugula33

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This is only true if you view it from the lens that Riot really was just abusing its power. We don't really know what happened and there's still a whole season left.

#74

TMosura

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Leo literally said on PlatChat that 2027 is practically a clean slate to do whatever they want to improve the ecosystem.

We don't know what this entails. We can't assume the worst because we don't know what would the model be for 2027.

Focus on 2026 being the stopgap year. Be positive, but temper expectations on what the 2027 model could be.

You're looking at an implication where nobody don't even know what the basis is off yet.

#76

Anguibok

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I'm okay being positive, I'm probably the biggest Faria's fangirl on this forum defending him on many many point. But there I feel I need to tamper the expectation, because "End of ascension" sounds really really shady. Cant wait to learn more, but this announcement my my anxiety rise, while everyone seems to be happy even tho this is really weird and doesn't really make sense @.@

#40

bronzil_enjoyer

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w change in champs format

#44

FadeIntoNothingness

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A lot of this is so confusing... if it replaces ascension does that mean ascension doesnt exist anymore? what happens to currently ascended teams? will ascension/tier 2 teams never be able to make it to masters?

also removing group and swiss stages is bad, it over punishes teams for having one bad game, and discourages trying new things/comps out in a competitive setting for fear of losing.

#47

Dybala21

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Most likely there will make challengers similar to EMEA for 2026.

As for relegation/promotion, maybe Riot will make announcement related to that later

#45

pkkkk

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SANTIAGO LETS GOOOOO

#46

pkkkk

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.

#48

jaKe-y

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And i thought cs frogs are the most easily impressed. These mfs gave you 4 extra teams for one tournament, and a spot for challenger teams and you forgave leo faria for being a complete imbecile

No franchising open TO system all year round

#49

Loomer

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better than coming up with a response that acts as if they are done making changes when they clearly said this is the set up to even more changes the following year but cannot implement yet bc they still have to honor their contractual agreement with the current cycle of vct

#54

jaKe-y

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Why can't they just announce that 2027 they abolish franchising? Or announce the sacking of Leo faria? Those are meaningful changes.

#50

9wntr

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leo faria :3

#52

TheLoque

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Wdym no swiss and group style arrangement? The each stage is strictly bracket?

#53

Rico98

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YT comment: cant wait for a platchat episode in santiagos beautiful architecture, one in shanghais highest tower and one on a rainy construction site

#56

_Nonsense

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I prefer this to start for Master instead of Champs so we can see Tier 2 potential early on

#58

Palunb

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Somos el mejor pais de chile

#59

diffed

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i hope for better changes to tier 2 plssssss

#69

KyLZi

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Nrg band wagon getting pretty big. 👀

#70

kkrekt

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Drop everything, let riddle order into tier 1

#78

iOnyx

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Austin Texas had a CS event last year that I went to because I was at UT, now we need regionals or a master here please I want valorant in Texas

#81

Jezy

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Rare rito W

#87

sexocum

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why not 4 slots for tier 2 like, each lan or something? Why just champs for tier 2?

Riot unveils Masters destinations, format changes for 2026

Masters Destinations

Roadshows

Format Changes