In a surprising announcement, Riot Games revealed that a highly anticipated VALORANT team from North America won’t be able to join the VCT Americas League in 2024. The team called The Guard, which fans really like, didn’t agree to the league’s rules in time, even after talking about it for months. Because of this, they can’t take part in the 2024 VCT Americas League. This news has shocked both fans and players.
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An update regarding the teams participating in VCT Americas 2024. pic.twitter.com/YCYoZSPpcL
— VALORANT Esports NA (@valesports_na) August 29, 2023
Also, no teams from the Challengers scene, including M80 which came in second place in the Challenger Ascension tournament, will move up to the main league. Instead, Riot has chosen to keep the same 10 teams for the next season. This has caused a lot of upset among the VALORANT community.
The players on The Guard’s team were completely caught off guard by today’s news. Some of them have mentioned that they had no idea about this decision before it was announced.
I am devastated. All the hard work and sacrifices we have went through as a team just to have it stripped away from us through Twitter… At the end of the day some things in life are truly out of your control and it is unfair but to be punished for putting my heart and soul into…
— GUARD neT (@neT_valorant) August 29, 2023
Michael “neT” Bernet requested that Riot give The Guard’s team a chance to compete in VCT Americas next year. Jonah “JonahP” Pulice expressed that the team had no prior knowledge of any potential issues with their participation in the tournament.
Ethan Arnold from Evil Geniuses expressed his frustration with the whole situation. He questioned how The Guard even managed to qualify for Ascension in the first place. He also mentioned that Riot should already have plans in place for such situations where things go wrong.
Ethan shared his thoughts on social media, saying, “Players work hard all year with a specific goal, and then it’s suddenly taken away from them in the end, even after they achieved their goal. What’s to prevent this from happening again the next time a team qualifies? Are we going to keep having just 10 teams in the Americas Franchise forever?”
I pray that either another org gets the spot and gets all the Guard players with that so they aren’t punished for literally working so hard to get there.
M80 gets the spot since they were the runner up in Ascension.
Or Guard figure it out and not fail and have the common sense…
— EG C0M (@C0Mtweets) August 29, 2023
Corbin “C0M” Lee hopes the players find another chance after their effort-filled year. Many suggest promoting M80 to fill the spot. Fairness is the community’s main concern, not letting the hard work of these tier-two players go to waste due to one organization’s actions.
A lot to process right now…
So much work was put into our Ascension winning run & we built a program that would've been very competitive next year. Now I have no idea where my team's future lies.
Open to talking any potential orgs right now, I'll be a free agent. https://t.co/UXGHwJqPIN
— GUARD JoshRT (@JoshRTz) August 29, 2023
The Guard had a remarkable journey in this year’s VALORANT Challengers Ascension. They only lost two matches on their path to victory, securing a spot among the top teams in the region. Their performance indicated that they were rapidly becoming one of the most promising teams in North America. In their debut year, they could have stood out among the other top teams in the Americas and created a significant impact.
