Burnt Out: Counter-Strike and VALORANT professionals weigh in on packed 2024 schedule

23 Jan

Foo Zen-Wen

Burned out? Playing too many games? How many is too many? A recent debate has emerged on social media, stemming from an initial conversation between Leo Faria and several VALORANT professionals players and fans.

The conversation centred around the scheduling for 2024 and how in many areas, it has been suboptimal as both a viewing experience and a competitive circuit. Now, Counter-Strike personalities are weighing in, citing that compared to Counter-Strike’s famously packed schedule, VALORANT’s appears almost lightweight – not that it is a competition.

Tracing it To the Root

The conversation began on January 17th, when Leo Faria – Global Head of Valorant Esports and Commissioner of the VCT – announced the return of the VCT for 2024. By January 18th, multiple professional players had stepped in, citing that the schedule was too packed and had too few games, stating sardonically: ‘If only there were 4 more months in the year to play with. Idk just a suggestion tho. Give us more games,’ said the player.

With the season kicking off in mid-February with the Kick-Off tournaments, Valorant Champions is set to begin at the start of August. This averages to roughly 5 and a half months of competition out of the entire calendar year.

Leo Faria would reply in short order, stating that Riot was looking to expand their calendar year in 2025 to space things out and shorten the offseason. However, he also communicated that Riot was currently happy with the baseline number of games that each team plays and that currently they were not looking to increase that number.

Teams in the VCT currently have the opportunity to play a minimum of 10 Bo3s across the regular season. Yes, that is for the entire 2024 season. This of course, does not account for Kick-Off games (which adds a minimum of 2 extra Bo3s) and Playoffs. The Last Chance Qualifier tournament has also been removed from play, so teams that do not do well during the regular season, will not see play towards the latter stages of the season as we tee up for Champions.

Read Here for Details on the Full VCT Schedule: VCT 2024: Kickoff tournament, Format, Schedule and more

Riot’s reasoning for it comes from their explanation that they were unable to fit in a full round-robin per split without shifting the format into Bo1 or risk delaying the rest of the schedules. Therefore, Riot has elected to split each league into two groups that will play within their own group for Split 1, and cross group match for Split 2 – completing the full round-robin that way.

The Crux of the Matter: Burnout

While many keen-eyed Counter-Strike aficionados will be quick to call out that such a small number of games can hardly cause burnout – take pause. However, what the professional VALORANT circuit lacks in volume, it more than makes up for in pressure. With less games, each match matters more.

Unlike Counter-Strike, with its multitudes of independent 3rd party tournament operators, the VCT circuit is a year-long journey. A misstep early in the season, or a poor start, could be enough to spell the end for a team’s entire season less than halfway through it.

Moreover, this introduced format from Riot serves well for themselves – at the cost of everyone else. It has the potential to highlight good teams more, leave them longer in the spotlight. For the teams with poorer performances, the lights are turning off, lock the doors on your way out.

The Iron Gauntlet of the VCT Circuit

For example, Fnatic VALORANT, a team that won two international titles in 2023, made the finals of their own domestic Playoffs and reached top 4 at Champions 2023.

Across their year, they played a total of 24 Bo3s. 12 of those were domestic, meaning within the VCT EMEA circuit including Playoffs. 5 came from LOCK//IN. 3 from Masters Tokyo. And 6 from Champions LA. This also does not include the 3 Bo5s they played for the Grand Finals of LOCK//IN, VCT Masters Tokyo, and VCT EMEA respectively.

By contrast, Detonation FocusMe played in 11 matches throughout 2023. 10 of those, came from VCT Pacific. They had one international appearance at LOCK//IN, promptly losing their opening Bo3 and was eliminated from the tournament.

In 2024, teams will need to attend the Kick-Off tournament, a domestic tournament to be held for each of the four leagues. Qualifying through it will require the team to either top their group or win through a single Round-Robin group in Play-Ins to take the final spot. 4 of the 11 teams will qualify for Playoffs, where the top 2 will make Masters Madrid.

Moreover, it gets more strenuous from there. Split 1 will include 5 Bo3s per team across a 5-week period. Doing well here qualifies them for Masters Shanghai. This is then followed by another 5-week period for Split 2, in which qualification for Champions is on the line. With all these games, it is not difficult to spot where burnout may come into play for professional VALORANT players.

Counter-Strike Rears Its Head in Confusion: Burnout, really?

Since the release of reports of the outcry from VALORANT professionals, citing it was too packed and there was too much to prep and play within such a schedule, notable Counter-Strike personalities such as Duncan “Thorin” Shields and Mathieu “Maniac” Quiquerez and Mohan “launders” Govindasamy have weighed in.

Thorin cited it as comedy.

Maniac reposted the report with the simple caption of a question mark.

Launders took it a step further with a screenshot showing Monte, a Counter-Strike roster, having played 141 maps across the span of 3 months. That would be the equivalent of 47 Bo3s played out in its entirety, with an average of 15-16 Bo3s a month.

The largest difference between Counter-Strike’s and VALORANT’s professional circuits, comes down to the organization. Counter-Strike largely makes use of 3rd-party tournament organizers, all of whom have their own independent circuits.

Meaning, if a team does not do well in one, fear not, there are more circuits to shine in, and most of the large tournaments have invitation slots for the best teams in the world, meaning they have guaranteed appearances and a fresh slate to compete on. VALORANT offers no such safety.

Professional player and former Counter-Strike veteran Kyrylo "ANGE1" Karasov was among those who weighed in. Having spent the lion’s share of his years competing, he is one of the rare few that has continued to compete at the highest level – having done so in Counter-Strike prior to his retirement from that title. In his reply, he took a different tact.

“It wasn’t about playing matches. It was about 8 months not being at home, living in a different country, plus 20-25 days per international tournament 3 times.”

Natus Vincere, the organization Kyrylo currently competes under, participated in VCT LOCK//IN, VCT Masters Tokyo, and VCT Champions LA. Having not qualified through VCT Tokyo for Champions, NA’VI also participated in the Last Chance Qualifier, emerging as the runners-up.

Conclusion

In conclusion, comparison between the two circuits is a difficult task, and no single opinion undermines either arguments. Both esports titles offer difficult competitive years, albeit with different approaches to the format. To dismiss thoughts of burnout off of sheer match numbers, is to discount the incredible amount of context that is needed to weigh in on the subject.

Credit: Shutterstock, CC images, Midjourney, Unsplash.