In the tactical shooter Valorant, there is trouble in e-sports: The team “The Guard” had actually qualified for the 1st league, but Riot Games withdrew “The Guard’s” opportunity for promotion due to management issues within the team. Much to the dismay of the fans, no team would be promoted in 2024. Now Riot is backtracking.
This was the conflict:
- The e-sports team “The Guard” had qualified for promotion to the 1st league of Valorant during 2023.
- However, Riot Games decided on August 29 that the team would not be allowed to be promoted – and also no other team. “The Guard” had failed to sign a specific agreement over several months. However, Riot did not want to simply promote the second-place team in the promotion battle because one should earn promotion within the game, not outside of it.
- However, the decision not to allow a team that fought so hard to be promoted sparked much protest among the fans.
Valorant is an up-and-coming e-sports title:
Riot Games admits mistakes
This is Riot Games’ new decision: On September 1, Riot Games reversed the decision. 10,000 people had signed an online petition advocating for The Guard to be allowed to be promoted to the 1st league (via change.org)
The e-sports chief, Leo Faria, stated that they acted too quickly with the original decision and quickly realized that a mistake had been made. The feedback from the fans made that clear.
The new decision states: The players of The Guard could either separate and look for new teams or they could stay together and be promoted to the 1st league if they find a new organization that signs them.
xQc expresses interest in taking over the team
Who is now the hope? The Twitch streamer xQc has expressed interest in signing the players of “The Guard” and letting them compete in 2024 under a new organization.
However, there are some catches:
- xQc is a known gambler – Riot might have issues with that
- on the other hand, xQc almost signed another team at the beginning of 2023, but exited the negotiations and then ghosted the players of that team.
Additionally, xQc said it could be expensive to buy the team, as a Tier-1 team like that costs a lot in terms of accommodation and salary. Building all of that also takes time.
But it’s probably more about xQc failing to execute a project consistently rather than the money.
So the former Overwatch professional does not always seem really organized:
“What? On Sunday?” – Twitch streamer learns on Twitter that he has an important appointment
