What’s next for Valorant Esports in 2020?

Shortly after launch, Riot Games announced the Valorant Ignition Series. A collection of online tournaments, hosted by official Riot partners all around the world.

This was intended to be the first step towards building out a robust competitive ecosystem for the new shooter. Here we are a couple of months later, and the Ignition Series has already been a huge success.

We’ve seen top tier professional gameplay, storylines developing and burning rivalries starting to form. Viewership at the recent FaZe Clan Invitational was almost quadruple that of the debut NA event, with hundreds of thousands tuning in to see TSM defeat the Sentinels in a nail-bitingly close Grand Final.

On Wednesday, Riot announced Pop Flash, hosted by B Site, as the fourth and final North American tournament in the Valorant Ignition Series. Running from August 26 through August 30 and featuring a $50,000 prize pool, Pop Flash looks set to be the most competitive event yet.

B Site’s founding teams; Cloud9, Dignitas, Envy, Gen.G and Immortals will be joined by Sentinels, T1, and two-time Ignition Series champions TSM. This is arguably the strongest line-up we’ve seen in terms of the best performing Valorant teams.

But if this is the last NA Ignition Series event, what happens between the end of August and the start of Episode 2 in early 2021? Well, nothing has been confirmed, but it seems likely that Riot will find a way to satisfy our Valorant esports cravings before then.

Over in Japan, the Valorant Mildom Masters is scheduled to be the first ever league style Valorant event. Rather than taking place over one weekend, participants will play weekly matches in a Round Robin format, with the top performers eventually progressing to playoffs and finals stages.

It would be fantastic to see something like this for North America and Europe as well. With competition spanning over multiple weeks, it gives spectators the opportunity to really connect with the teams, becoming a fan of a specific roster.

Although the potential of a LAN event is still low, Riot could host a one-off, online major tournament. I’m not talking Worlds, with millions of dollars on the line, but just something with a bit more significance behind it.

Of course, the game is still young, and the Esports scene is very much in its infancy, but it would be cool to crown a “best Valorant team of 2020” for each region.

At this point, we can only speculate. However, the developers have been incredibly transparent thus far, and are not likely to keep us in the dark for long. Whatever is coming next, we can’t wait.