On Thursday, the finals of a major tournament in the shooter Valorant will start, the First Strike: North America. The 8 best teams compete for $100,000 in prize money. However, only two Twitch streamers are allowed to broadcast the tournament – this surprises some players.
What kind of tournament is this? The shooter Valorant is considered the upcoming major e-sport. First Strike is somewhat like the 1st Regional Championship of Valorant:
- In the 3 major regions North America, Europe, and South Korea, each competes for $100,000 in prize money.
- The medium-sized regions like Russia, Turkey, Japan, or Brazil play for slightly less money, around $40,000.
- The small regions like North Africa or Indonesia have to settle with about $10,000 in prize money.
In the North American version of the tournament, there were already two preliminaries in November, each featuring 16 teams.
Now, on December 3 at 4:00 PM, the final round begins with 8 teams that qualified. Among the 8 teams are big names in e-sports such as 100 Thieves, TSM, T1, or FaZe Clan.
The tournament starts right away with quarterfinals, ensuring excitement. Those who win their first matches secure $10,000, those who reach the finals are guaranteed $20,000, and the winners get as much as $40,000. So it is worth it.
Only Ninja and Myth are allowed to show the tournament on Twitch
What about the streamers? Riot Games has announced that the tournament can only be broadcast by two streamers:
- Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, upon his return to Twitch, is the streamer with the largest channel – he is allowed to show the tournament.
- Ali “Myth” Kabban, number 5 on Twitch, is also allowed to broadcast it.
The two are the official “exclusive co-streamers” of the event.
The selection seems to follow the principle of performance: Myth and Ninja not only have huge channels with millions of followers, but they have also been the most watched channels for Valorant in the last 30 days.
Ninja has streamed Valorant for 132 hours in the last 30 days, while Myth has streamed for 72 hours.
This is how it is discussed: The news causes some surprise on reddit. People are indeed surprised by the choice of the two streamers:
- Ninja is a “very polarizing figure” for many players.
- Some admit that Myth is an extremely entertaining entertainer, but he clearly favors his own team, TSM – which makes it hard to watch. After all, TSM is one of the 8 teams participating.
Even if the two streamers do not cause outrage, one wonders why exactly these two were selected as co-streamers for the Valorant tournament and not their favorite streamer.
For instance, some posters mention that Josh “Sideshow” Wilkinson should have streamed it.
One user adds: The two streamers, who already earn millions of dollars, would receive even more for free, while the “small people” would be left empty-handed.
However, they comfort themselves with the fact that the official Valorant stream is also highly staffed. Those who are not fans of Myth or Ninja can simply watch that.
Riot Games proved in 2020 that they understand Twitch like hardly any other software company. The fundamental idea for Riot Games is to make things “exclusive” on Twitch and Valorant in particular, and to increase demand by restricting supply.
With a single idea, they perfectly utilized Twitch to promote their new shooter Valorant. Because those who wanted to get into the exclusive, closed beta had to watch Valorant on Twitch. This triggered a crazy gold rush and hype around the game:
Valorant starts with great hype on Twitch – Riot’s plan works
