Riot Games announce Valorant: Ignition Series

Even before the closed beta begun, people were calling Valorant to be the next major esports title. The developers have been transparent from the start, expressing their commitment to competitive integrity, accessibility and authenticity.

As previously suggested, the first wave of professional Valorant events will be run by third party organisers with the backing of Riot. In order to add some consistent and recognisable branding to these tournaments, they have launched the “Ignition Series”.

In a blog post discussing the announcement, key members of the Valorant esports team Whalen “Magus” Rozelle and Kasra “Curiouskaz” Jafroodi explained the reasoning behind this strategy. It’s all about opportunity, “It’s important for the esports scene to grow naturally in a way that will authentically develop talent, players and stars” they said.

The Valorant Ignition Series is an official Riot-partner program which will see them work with more than 20 esports organisations, providing top tier competition all over the globe. This will mean a mixture of open qualifiers, show matches and invitationals, each with its own unique flavour.

You can keep up with the schedule via the official Ignition Series page. The first two events have already been announced. Kicking off on June 19, at 15:00 CEST, G2 Esports will be hosting an 8-team invitational. Whilst in Japan, at 15:00 JST on June 20 and 21, the Rage x Ignition Valorant tournament will see teams battle it out for a winner-takes-all prize of 500,000 Yen.

It sounds like we will be treated to a steady flow of exciting competition throughout the year. This is just the first step towards building out a “robust competitive ecosystem” for Valorant and we can’t wait to see how it evolves.