What is VCT Challengers Ascension? Challenger promotion path explained

VALORANT Champions Tour has a shiny new format for the next five years, and although it is fun and exciting, it can be a little difficult to figure out what’s going on.

Challengers Ascension is a new league within the VCT ecosystem that allows players from the Challengers tournaments to move up to a spot in the international competition in the three regional leagues.

The results of the Challengers Ascension league will take a few years to fully develop into what the future of VALORANT esports will look like. This section of the VCT competition will start out in 2023 as a competition for those looking to snag the last spot in the international league in 2024.

What is VCT Challengers Ascension?

Teams will start in the Challengers league, which will feature two splits. There are 21 Challengers leagues, each of which will have two splits with a multi-week of regular season play. The top teams from the Challengers competition will move on to the Challengers Ascension tournament.

Challengers Ascension will feature three regions: the Americas, EMEA, and Pacific. At the end of the Challengers Ascension tournament, one team from each of those regions will move into their territory’s international league.

This means that in 2024, there will be 11 teams in each league in the international tournament instead of 2023’s 10. The team that wins the spot in 2024’s international league from the Challengers Ascension path will compete at that level for two years. After that two years, the team will be forced to go back to the Challengers league.

Teams in their second year in the international league who qualified via Challengers Ascension will not be allowed to participate in that year’s Challengers or Challengers Ascension leagues, meaning they will be forced to start all over again after their two years in the international league is up.

VCT Challengers five-year outlook

Beginning in 2024, the number of teams competing in the international league will start to increase. By 2027, there will be 42 teams total competing in the international league. In 2026, two teams per year will be promoted into international leagues instead of just one.

This means every year until 2026, one team will get promoted into the international league. After 2026, two teams will make it in per year until the league reaches its cap of 14 teams in 2027. Once it reaches 14 teams, 10 of those will be partnered, two will be in their second year of promotion, and two will begin their two-year promotion. Each year, two teams will earn a spot in the international league via Challengers Ascension for the following year.

For fans of competitive VALORANT, this means a lot of exciting esports, since there will be the in-game tournament feature that Riot is adding, the open qualifier Challengers tournaments, Challengers Ascension, and the international league.

VCT path-to-pro explained

If you are a VALORANT player with dreams of making it to the top tier of VCT, there is still a solid path for you to get there. Riot is adding an in-game tournament that goes beyond ranked, and that in-game tournament will tie directly into VCT, likely allowing teams to qualify for Champions straight from the in-game competition.

If you don’t make it from the in-game competition, the Challengers tournaments will continue to have open qualifiers, giving you an extra chance to compete in Challengers. There are 21 regions for Challengers tournaments based in three larger regions, which will determine which Challengers tournament they participate in. The top teams from Challengers will move on to the Ascension tournament for their region.

From there, the team that wins their region’s Ascension tournament will move up to the international league for two years. After two years, that team will have to go back to their region’s Challengers tournament to fight their way back up again.

Details about the start date for each of the leagues and the format within each region will likely be revealed closer to the end of the year or the beginning of 2023. News about Game Changers tournament format for next year hasn’t been revealed yet, and fans will likely hear about that tournament sometime next month when Champions takes place.